WHAT was turning out to be a historic and glittering year for Philippine sports, thanks to the spectacular feats of weightlifter Hidylin Diaz and the boxers, was nearly overshadowed by the controversy involving pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena and the local athletics association erupting in late November.
Amid the gloomy pandemic landscape, tennis teen wonder Alex Eala provided initial relief and inspiration to Filipino sports fans back home when she copped her second doubles major on June 12, Philippine Independence Day, at the famed Roland Garros claycourts in Paris, France.
Eala, 16, teamed up with Russian Oksana Selekhmeteva to swamp Russia’s Maria Bondarenko and Hungary’s Amarissa Kiara Toth 6-0, 7-5 in the finals, adding the French Open junior girls’ doubles crown to her Australian Open girls’ doubles title a year earlier.
Filipino-Japanese golfer Yuka Saso followed it up with a nail-biting come-from-behind victory in the 76th US Women’s Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco on July 6.
Displaying tremendous poise and brilliance under pressure, she overcame back-to-back double bogeys on the front nine with consecutive birdies on holes Nos. 16 and 17 to force a playoff with Japan’s Nasa Hataoka. They finished with 4-under 280 at the par-71, 6,486-yard Lakeshore course.
Saso bagged the coveted Harton S. Semple Trophy with a birdie to Hataoka’s par on the third playoff hole, becoming the first Filipino pro to win a major golf championship.
At 19 years, 11 months and 17 days, the 2018 Asian Games double gold medalist tied South Korean Inbee Park, the US Women’s Open champion in 2008 and 2013, as the youngest winner of the prestigious event while pocketing the grand prize of $1 million (roughly P50 million).
While her US Women’s Open win set up Saso as one of the country’s top gold medal prospects in the Tokyo Olympic Games, it was Diaz who shone brightest among the 19 Pinoy Olympians — 11 women and 10 men — in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Competing in her fourth straight Olympics, Diaz won her intense down-the-wire duel with reigning world and Olympic champion Liao Qiuyun of China, hoisting a record-setting 224 kilograms to the latter’s 223 to top the women’s 55kg class on July 26 at the Tokyo International Forum.
The battle came down to their last lifts in the clean-and-jerk, with Qiuyun, who performed ahead of the Pinay bet, gaining the slight upperhand by raising 126 kilos, believing it was enough for her to clinch the desired gold.
But the Zamboanga City pride, who trained hard in Malaysia throughout her Olympic build-up since winning her first gold in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, dug deep within herself and, straining with all her might, did her Chinese foe better with a mint-clinching lift of 127 kilos.
Diaz ended a near century dry spell since Philippine campaigners began seeing action in the Olympic Games in the 1924 edition in Paris, France.
Embellishing the country’s most successful Olympic campaign were the boxers, who delivered a pair of silver medals courtesy of flyweight Carlo Paalam and women’s featherweight Nesthy Petecio, and a bronze medal from middleweight Eumir Felix Marcial.
Erasing his disappointing 11th-place finish in the Tokyo Games, Obiena capped his European season campaign by topping the Golden Roof Challenge in Innsbruck, Austria on Sept. 11 with a record-breaking jump of 5.93 meters.
He surpassed not only his old national mark of 5.91 meters set in the Meeting de Paris Stade on Aug. 28 but also erased the 29-year-old Asian mark of 5.92 meters set by Kazakhstan’s Igor Potapovich in Dijon, France.
Cue ace Carlo Biado hogged the spotlight in September when he emerged as the latest Filipino billiards player to win the prestigious US Pool Championship on Sept. 18 at the Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Biado completed an incredible comeback, rallying from a 3-8 deficit to surge past Singapore’s Aloysius Yapp 13-8 in the race-to-13 finale and pocket the top prize of $50,000 (P2.5 million).
Biado snapped the country’s 27-year dry spell in the tournament since Efren “Bata” Reyes topped what was then known as the US 9-Ball Open by beating American Nick Varner in the finals in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Also bouncing back from a lackluster Olympic outing was gymnast Carlos Edriel Yulo, who yielded his floor exercise title in Tokyo but more than made up for it by annexing the men’s vault gold and silver in the parallel bars in the 40th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan last October.
Defying Father Time twice in a span of eight months, Nonito Donaire Jr. retained his World Boxing Council bantamweight crown with a fourth-round knockout of compatriot Reymart Gaballo last Dec. 11 (Dec. 12 in Manila) at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson City, California.
At 39, Donaire remained the oldest world bantamweight champ in history after making his successful first defense of the title he wrested from erstwhile unbeaten Frenchman Nordine Oubaali with a fourth-round stoppage at the same arena on May 30.
But there were two gloomy developments on the local sports front, beginning with an announcement by Saso last November that she was choosing Japanese citizenship before she turns 22. The Bulacan-born ace acknowledged that the decision was born out of necessity, opening more opportunities — both financial and otherwise.
Obiena held an online press conference with his Ukrainian coach, Vitality Petrov, last Nov. 21 and accused the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association of persecution. Patafa had discovered that there was an apparent huge delay in the salaries due Petrov since 2018.
The Patafa launched an inquiry after Patafa President Philip Ella Juico, in a casual chat in early September with World Athletics Vice President and former world and Olympic champion Sergey Bubka, a Petrov protégé, learned that Petrov has not been getting his salary for three years ago.
This came as a shock to Juico since the Patafa has been religiously sending the salary of Petrov, coming from the Philippine Sports Commission, to Obiena. Apparently, Obiena has not been forwarding the money to Petrov.
Petrov’s salary was later paid in full, with money coming from different bank accounts within and outside the country last November when the local track body had begun its administrative inquiry into the issue.
Philippine Sports Commission Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez tried to defuse the volatile situation by asking both parties to submit to mediation so the controversy can be settled amicably and with confidentiality.
Obiena risks losing P12 million in financial assistance from the PSC in 2022 if the Patafa will no longer be entitled to further financial help until the controversy is resolved.
