9:57 pm | Sunday, August 12th, 2012
THE 30TH Olympic Games in London will soon drop its curtains. Winners are cherishing their medals while losers are either saying farewell to the Olympics for good or gnashing their teeth, eager to start a comeback at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
Another Filipino campaign bites the dust and in the days to come, there will be more than enough space allotted to analyzing and even over analyzing what is wrong with Philippine sports.
But more than our usual Olympic debacle, what could be the impact of the London Games? It seems fitting to rewind to 2005 when two-time Olympic gold medal winner Sebastian Coe led a determined British team to win the bid to host the 2012 Games. It is engaging to see how exactly the Brits won and what the lasting legacy of their Games will be as it now ends.
My advertising copywriter son Martin shared the book “Perfect Pitch” by Jon Steel during the unexpected holiday forced by the monsoon rains last week. Knowing that one of my passions aside from sports is teaching effective presentation skills, he asked me to read how London presented its bid for the Games. It was a stirring account of how great presentations should be made —with passion, precision and preparation.
The pitch was done with typical Brit savvy and restrained pizzazz. It touched on all the bases that the International Olympic Committee members wanted covered: venues, accommodations, security, transportation and other Olympic concerns. There was also the usual tourism angle which the other finalists—Madrid, Paris, New York and Moscow—pitched hard as well.
But the clincher was Coe’s final spiel that the London Games would be the country’s expression of gratitude in order to “inspire young people to choose sport. Whoever they are, wherever they are, whatever they believe in.” As a child, Coe had been inspired to become an athlete by watching Olympic heroes. He and his bid team wanted the London Olympiad to inspire the next generation to inculcate sport into their lives.
Coe’s closing speech emphasized that “today’s children live in a world of conflicting messages and competing distractions. Their landscape is cluttered.” It was a clear take on a technology-driven world where everything is instantaneous. He wanted the 2012 Games to be a showcase of heroes who would trigger greater participation in sports rather than letting children be simply attached to electronic toys and wizardry. The voting audience made up of many former Olympians could only agree and chose London over Paris, its closest rival.
Our children’s heroes out of the Games could be multi-gold medal winner Michael Phelps, the US women’s football or basketball team of NBA stars or even the brash sprinter Usain Bolt whose oral declarations interestingly match his performances.
Even Philippine runner Rene Herrera, a steeplechaser who was forced to enter the 5,000 meters and was last in his heat, could be a hero for finishing the race and not giving up.
We may never really be able to count how many were inspired by the London Games, so majestically captured by the host broadcaster. But that is where this technologically-driven world has helped. If one Filipino child and other children worldwide decided during the Games that he or she would like to be an Olympian one day, then the London edition of this quadrennial human celebration of sport will have richly succeeded long after the Olympic flame is extinguished.
Tags: London 2012 Olympics
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| POS | COUNTRY | GOLD | SILVER | BRONZE | TOTAL |
| 1 | United States | 46 | 29 | 29 | 104 |
| 2 | China | 38 | 27 | 23 | 88 |
| 3 | Great Britain | 29 | 17 | 19 | 65 |
| 4 | Russia | 24 | 26 | 32 | 82 |
| 5 | South Korea | 13 | 8 | 7 | 28 |
| 6 | Germany | 11 | 19 | 14 | 44 |
| 7 | France | 11 | 11 | 12 | 34 |
| 8 | Italy | 8 | 9 | 11 | 28 |
| 9 | Hungary | 8 | 4 | 5 | 17 |
| 10 | Australia | 7 | 16 | 12 | 35 |
With only eight athletes in six sporting events for the London Games, this will be PH's smallest delegation since 1996.
The men's Philippine Basketball team is the first country to ever score 100 or more points in the 1948 Olympics after clobbering Iraq,102-30.
Harry Tañamor, the only Filipino predicted to win by the Sports Illustrated in its Olympic Preview edition, bows out in the first match up in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The Philippines last reached the final round swimming 80 years ago when Jikirum Adjaluddin and Teofilo Yldefonso ended up in the final six in the 1932 Los Angeles Games.
The Philippines has only won medals in three events since joining the Olympics in 1924.
The Philippines is the first country to compete and win an Olympic medal among Southeast Asian countries.
The Philippines holds the record for winning the most medals without a gold haul with seven bronze and two silvers for a total of nine.
The Philippine basketball team wound up fifth place—best finish for an Asian country in the Olympics to date—in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the first time basketball was played as an Olympic sport.
The Philippines has not won a medal since Mansueto "Onyok" Velasco settled for silver in boxing via a controversial decision during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Arianne Cerdena won a gold in bowling at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, but Cerdena's gold was not included in the medal tally since bowling was considered only as a demonstration sport.
Mary Antoinette Rivero's tie for fifth place in Taekwondo is the closest any Filipino athlete came to a medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The Philippines will shoot for its first gold medal in six of the following events in the 2012 London Olympics: Athletics, BMX, Boxing, Cycling, Shooting and Swimming.
John Baylon, a nine-time Southeast Asian Games gold medalist, and Jerry Diño were the last Filipino Olympic qualifiers in the discipline Judo, having vied in the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Teofilo Yldefonso is the first Filipino to win a medal and the only one to take home multiple medals. He finished third both in the Men's 200 meter breastroke during the 1928 and 1932 Olympics.
The largest delegation the Philippines has ever sent to the Games was 53 in the 1972 Munich Olympics.
The Philippines participated in the Winter Olympics three times, in 1972 (Juan Cipriano and Ben Nanasca, alpine skiing), in 1988 (Raymund Ocampo, luge) and in 1992 (Michael Teruel, alpine skiing).
1972 was the last year the Philippine men's basketball team, which then paraded William 'Bogs' Adornado, Danny Florencio and Yoyong Martirez among others in its line up, has qualified for the Olympics.
The Philippines is the first nation in the tropics to ever participate in the Winter Olympic Games.
Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, though not competing, carries the Philippine flag at the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Men's boxing has for medals in the Olympics with Anthony Villanueva, silver in the Featherweight Division of the 1964 Games in Tokyo; Leopoldo Serantes, third in 1988 Seoul; Roel Velasco, third in Barcelona; and his brother Mansueto "Onyok" Velasco, second in the 1996 Atlanta Games.
