AFTER going through a rigid screening process, Grandmaster Eugene Torre, former Asian Games sprint star Mona Sulaiman, multi-titled swimmer Haydee Coloso-Espino and 14 other sporting icons have been chosen to comprise the second batch of honorees to the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame.
“I am pleased to announce the latest 17 athletes, who have made it to the honor roll of the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame,” said Philippine Sports Commission Chairman Richie Garcia yesterday during the Philippine Sportswriters Association forum at Shakey’s Malate in Manila.
Garcia made the announcement during the session presented by San Miguel Corp., Accel, Shakey’s, and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. a day after the selection and screening committee, which he headed together with Philippine Olympic Committee President Jose Cojuangco Jr., made their decision during a meeting held at the PSC boardroom inside the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.
Aside from Sulaiman, Torre and Coloso-Espino, the other awardees are former world weightlifting champion Salvador del Rosario, national basketball players Ed Ocampo, Mariano Tolentino and Kurt Bachmann, tennis players Felicisimo Ampon, Johnny Jose, and Raymundo Deyro, athletic standouts Inocencia Solis and Isaac Gomez, shooters Adolfo “Chito” Feliciano and Martin Gison, and swimmers Jacinto Cayco, Gerardo “Ral” Rosario and Mohamad Pala.
Sulaiman was the toast of the 1962 Jakarta Asian Games, sweeping the 100 and 200-meter runs, while anchoring the Philippine squad to victory in the women’s 4×100-meter relay.
Still playing actively at 64, Torre, who ruled the National Open Chess Championship in 2014, was outstanding during the 1974 World Chess Olympiad in Nice, France, going undefeated on Board 1 with nine wins and one draw on the way to bagging a bronze medal.
Coloso-Espino accumulated three golds and five silvers in three consecutive Asian Games from the 1954 Manila, 1958 Tokyo to the 1962 Jakarta edition of the continental sports showcase.
In 1970, Del Rosario ruled the flyweight division in the world weightlifting championships in Akron, Ohio and copped a silver in the Thailand Asian Games.
Garcia said that the new honorees, whose performances spanned from 1924 to 1974, were picked based on the nominations by representatives of National Sports Associations, sports media and other sports-oriented entities and a point system based on their performance in the world championships Asian Games, Asian championships and Southeast Asian Games.