Winning and rising above all odds, four Filipino athletes spark hope and pride during these most challenging times through their phenomenal and historic triumphs.
This Sunday, The Atom Araullo Specials presents “Team Pilipinas” that features the stories of these Filipino athletes who ended the Philippines’ near century-long quest for Olympic multiple medals.
Apart from bringing home its first-ever gold medal, the Philippines also finished as the top-performing Southeast Asian nation in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics following its biggest medal haul in the history of the games.
Hidilyn Diaz made Olympic history as the Philippines’ first gold medalist, winning in the women’s weightlifting competition. Boxers Nesthy Petecio bagged the women’s featherweight silver, Carlo Paalam captured the men’s flyweight silver, while Eumir Marcial won a bronze in the men’s middleweight class.
Before their victories, the four Olympic medalists started from small beginnings like Hidilyn who at an early age experienced selling vegetables and fish with her father. So was Carlo, who as a kid used to scavenge garbage and metal scraps which he would sell to help earn money for his family in Cagayan de Oro City.
Meanwhile, Nesthy’s father who was an amateur boxer in Davao, began training her at the age of seven. She chose boxing as a sport to help the family earn extra income and to avail a sports scholarship.
Like Nesthy, Eumir Marcial also started boxing at the age of seven. His father was instrumental in getting him into the sport because he was the head coach of the Zamboanga City boxing team then.
Catch these four athletes’ stories in “Team Pilipinas” on The Atom Araullo Specials this Sunday at 2:00 p.m. on GMA Network.