The wines of Paris must have flowed freely in celebration of gymnast Carlos Yulo’s double-gold feat in the just-concluded Olympics. The toasts must have been endless, for Yulo, bronze winners Aira Villegas and Nesthy Petecio and the heroic efforts of the rest of the Philippine Olympians.
A reminder: Let there be no hangover and everybody head right back to the salt mines.
“The two golds and two bronzes we have won are truly worth celebrating. Let Yulo, Villegas and Petecio feel our immense gratitude to their performance. And let us welcome home as sports heroes, too, the 19 others who went toe-to-toe with the best athletes in the world in Paris.
“Let us not forget, there is always more work to be done,” said Eric Buhain, two-time Olympian in swimming, former Sports Commission, and Games and Amusement Board chairman, Batangas 1st District representative in Congress, and Philippine Aquatics, Inc. secretary general.
As always, Buhain noted, Yulo and company are now strong inspirations to the youth of the country. Young Filipinos are expected to take up gymnastics and boxing, as well as other sports out there, and dream of becoming champions like their heroes.
“Now that we got their attention, let us offer them something that would help their dreams come true. It is incumbent on us, sports officials, to provide a sustainable training program for our next Carlos Yulo, and before him golden weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, boxing brothers Onyok and Roel Velasco, to name a few.”
Buhain, who is no stranger to the adversities many Filipino athletes faced then and even now, observed one important thing while monitoring the Philippine campaign in Paris.
“Our President (Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos, Jr.), was among the first to congratulate our winners in Paris. And PBBM even went on to state that he will consult with Yulo on what are needed to continue our Olympic gold run.To my recollection, PBBM is the first Philippine President to make such statement, a validation of how much our President believes in the Filipino athletes.”
And so it is incumbent, Buhain stressed, on sports officials to lay down a comprehensive sports training program that will result to future Yulos and Diazes.
For his part, Buhain believes putting up regional training centers that focus on individual sports, getting as much promising and young atheletes into the program, then developing a strong talent identification process and getting the best of the lot into elite training — well supervised and funded.
“That Carlos Yulo once lived a stone’s throw away from the Rizal Memerial Sports Complex but was probably a basketball pro wannabe before finding out he has God-given skills in gymnastics, wow, can you imagine how many of his likes are out there?”
Buhain’s swimming group has started mapping out a path to discover future Filipino Olympians, be they homegrown or based overseas, and getting them to prepare in a single training program that shoots for the ultimate goal — more Olympic golds.
“When asked if he knew what incentives await him after his first Olympic gold, Carlos replied “Hindi ko po alam.”
That is the statement of a true athlete. An athlete motivated only by that childhood dream of becoming an Olympic champion, of singing the Lupang Hinirang before the whole world, that gave me goosebumps.
“There are more like Carlos Yulo out there, they dream big. Now let us build for them a path, the right path for their Olympic journey.
“My congratulations to our new batch of Olympians. I raise a glass to you, too, but again, there is always a lot of work to be done, let’s get on with it.”
