Hidilyn Diaz Olympic Gold Has Sent My Odyssey as Sports Fan Full Circle
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 27 Jul 2021
Diaz's Tokyo Olympics gold winning performance.
With modern Wonderwoman Hidilyn Diaz winning in women's weightlifting 55 kg class, at last our long cherished first gold medal in the Olympics yesterday, July 26,2021 an otherwise dreary, rain and flood filled, sordid SONA Monday, I feel that my odyssey as an avid follower of sports has come full circle from more than 60 years ago.
It started in June 1960 when I saw splashed in the front page of our then family regular newspaper, the Manila Times, a huge black and white photo of a man, arms raised, standing over another fallen half bared man. Not yet able to read, I asked my now deceased beloved father, Gabriel, to tell me what it meant. He quite jubilantly and patiently explained that the man with arms raised was his namesake, Gabriel Flash Elorde who just the night before won the world junior lightweight crown and the fallen man was his hapless foe, American Harold Gomes, the guy he took the title from.
Amazing how that simple scene transformed a boy barely five years old at that time into a voracious, insatiable sports fanatic.
Two years later, it was a defeat that caught my eye and somehow deflated my spirit: that of another photo in the Times showing Roberto Cruz taking a beating along the ropes in dropping his newly won world junior welterweight title to American Eddie Perkins in their fight held at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.
My passion for following boxing, specifically Filipino boxers was further heightened in 1964 with Anthony Villanueva winning the country's first silver in the then first Olympics in Tokyo, bettering his own father, Cely's bronze medal win years back.
Elorde's reign in boxing ended in June 1967 on a night I saw tears fell from my beloved mother, Remedios's and my elder sisters' eyes because of that loss.
My attention and interest shifted to another of our national passion, basketball, as our country's national squad starring Robert Jaworski and a surname sake, Alberto Big Boy Reynoso regained the 1967 Asian championship. That team was affectionately christened "The Dirty Dozen", after a popular war movie of the same title at that time.
But a year later, in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, a realization dawned upon me that we have no future in basketball. The sight of our gallant dozen gasping for air in the city's high elevation, even resorting to using oxygen tank, and getting bamboozled by the towering oppositions into near rear end finish painted a thousand words of futility. Our medal hopefuls then included Mona Sulaiman, Amelita Alanes in and a burly Fil-Am Josephine de la Vina in track and field.
But then, boxing and also basketball still took hold of my--- I guess, our collective attention in the early 70s until in 1972, Bobby Fischer and Eugene Torre inspired us to take on another fetish: chess. Rosendo Balinas who also became a chess Grandmaster sustained that in the next few years.
The period also introduced to me another sport event, weightlifting through a diminutive strongman, Salvador Del Rosario who came very close to winning a medal in the world competition. But such was his impact that I remember our school then, Manuel A Roxas High School in Manila became a training ground for young, future hopefuls in the sport, including Neil Trampe.
In the mid to late 70s, in the midst of our passion for boxing, basketball and chess, arrived the threesome of Rafael 'Paeng' Nepomuceno, Olivia 'Bong' Coo and Lydia 'Lyds' de la Rosa who struck home the message that we can also excel in bowling. It was also during this period that a pair of lass from the province, Lydia de Vega and Elma Muros started to show their promise and potentials in athletics.
The 80s would preoccupy my mind with pro basketball and boxing, both local and international- NBA with LA and Boston and PBA with Purefoods, Ginebra, Shell, Alaska and San Miguel respectively and great fighters as Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran. But it was also the era where Nepomuceno, Coo and De La Rosa would be at their best form and Diay and Elma and likewise Sid del Prado would live up to their potentials and promises in track, at least in the regional levels. It will also give us Luisito Espinosa, the first Pinoy to win a world title in the bantamweight division. There's also Amang Parica in billiards, our swimmers, especially the handsome duo of Wilson and Jacobs and Dyan Castillejo and Felix Barrientos in tennis spawned by the popularity of Bjorn Borg and company. The Decade also produced an Olympic bronze in boxing through Leopoldo Serrantes in Seoul 1988 after the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and our forgettable showing in the somewhat diluted 1984 LA Olympics.
It was almost the same in the 90s with Paeng winning another World Cup in bowling, Ariane Cerdenia bagging an unofficial gold also in bowling, a demo sport in the 1992 Barcelona Games. Then Onyok Velasco struck silver in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics boxing. He was the toast of Philippine Sport although earlier, another Filipino boxer Elias Recaido had brought home another bronze in Barcelona.
It was an era that Pampango Efren Bata Reyes started to weave his magic in pool and billiards and Luisito Espinosa achieving another first by winning the world championship in the featherweight, another Filipino Waterloo division.
Most importantly, the 90s gave us an inkling of the greatness of another Pinoy pro boxer, Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao who won the first of his now epic eight world championships in as many boxing weight divisions a few days after his 20th birthday and a few days before Christmas in 1998 by wresting the WBC and lineal world flyweight crown in Thailand.
The first two decades of the new millennium were essentially Manny Pacquiao era with Pacman streaking to his next seven world boxing division championships. But we proceeded to produce a few more multi division champions in Gerry Peñalosa, Nonito Donaire, Donnie 'Ahas' Nietes and Johnriel Casimero. Meanwhile we continue to struggle in other sports particularly in basketball although from time to time we have some surprises in some events as chess, gymnastics, women's golf and billiards and yes, weightlifting with Hidilyn winning a golden silver in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
In 2019 and the immediate pandemic recovery effort period, I thought we have already reached the Nirvana in sport with Manny becoming world champion again after earlier getting named as Fighter of the Decade (2000-2009) and nominated for another FOTD award in 2010-2019. We are also dominating in what used to be our weakest division, the bantamweight, through Donaire, Casimero and Reymart Gaballo.
I never thought that that Nirvana would be delivered by a simple, humble, unassuming woman named Hidilyn Diaz and in a sport not very popular among Pinoys and traditionally perceived as for men only.
Hidilyn winning the first Philippine Olympic gold has made my more than six decade odyssey as an impetuous fan and follower of sports come full circle.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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