Monopoly

With ten titles, Creamline is now the winningest team in the country’s professional volleyball league. The Cool Smashers swept all crowns of the season from all-Filipino to reinforced conference and the eight-day pocket tournament. The first ever grand slam of the league.

Some teams really just dominate like no other. The Bolton Celtics unlocked the deadlock with the Los Angeles Lakers this year. With 17 titles earned over half a century, it finally clinched the clincher since 2008 to inch away from the Lakers. But sometimes they suddenly slump. The Ateneo Blue Eagles has been dumped in the first three outings of the season in the collegiate league.

For individual sports, there’s Usain Bolt in sprints, even if before he bit the dust. He ended his career with eight Olympic medals. Supposedly 9 for treble treble, but his relay team was stripped of the gold after one of its members tested positive for a banned substance.

Such dominance is often preceded by who was once thought the greatest. Before Bolt there was Carl Lewis who was likewise preceded by Jesse Owens. Michael Phelps in swimming too, who as a child struggled with learning disability that his kindergarten teacher warned his mother he will never be able to focus on anything. Except swimming, she must have meant.

 Simone Biles in gymnastics, except her mental block that forced her out of Tokyo. Not that she lost her marbles, she just lost focus. Her mind was no longer connected to her body. The twisties. Carlos Yulo didn’t have any when he struck two golds, but has twists and turns with two women, the first one birthed him, the other one girthed him. 

Novak Djokovic in tennis except that he is not the most charismatic, especially next to gentlemen Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Lance Armstrong in cycling before he was caught doping. Armand Duplantis holds ten highest pole vaults in history, with the latest at 6.26m.

Before him was Ukrainian Sergey Bubka, the first man to clear 6 meters, equal to the personal best of EJ Obiena. But the Swedish world and Olympic champion relegates the Filipino to a perennial best man not good enough to be the groom. It’s all right. Some grooms are doomed, just as some brides are either fried or fired.

Monopoly. While others are ordinary, except for some rivalry. In media there was duopoly, but one was shut down and the other finally won, except that viewership battle moved to digital platform. In politics it is called dynasty, elsewhere contested by republicans and democrats represented by a trumped up man and a woman whose parents are immigrants. It is curious how the land of the free uses its wisdom for the future of their country and of democracy. It is called crossroads. If they err, it could be end of the road.