On Monday night when she received her Lifetime Achievement Award from the Philippine Sportswriters Association, former long jump queen Elma Muros-Posadas couldn’t help but relive the times she shared with an old friend and rival, the late Lydia De Vega Mercado.
“Magkasama pa kaming mag-training noon at naging inpirasyon namin ang bawat isa. Iyong legacy niya sating lahat, marami siyang naiwang alaala,” said Muros-Posadas, who trained together with the former Sprint Queen of Asia under the Gintong Alay of then project Director Michael Keon, who is now mayor of Laoag City, Ilocos Norte.
“We miss you (Diay) Lydia De Vega, habang nabubuhay ako ‘di ka makakalimutan dahil palagi tayong magkasama at kahit wala ka na at ako na ang kaharap na Elma Muros Posadas, palagi akong napapag kamalang Lydia kaya maraming salamat sa sakripisyo na ibinigay mo sa pamilya mo at sa ating bansang Pilipinas,” added Muros in a social media post the next morning.
“Nag-iwan ka ng magandang legacy sa sports, sa buong Asia, at sa mga kabataan, IDOL Kita. Maraming maraming salamat, we love you,” she added.
De Vega-Mercado, who passed away due to cancer in August last year, was honored by the country’s oldest organization of sports scribes with a Hall of Fame award, which was received by her daughter Stephanie.
She was the toast of Philippine athletics in the 1980s, having won the 100m and 200m gold medals in the Asian Athletics Championship in 1983 and 1987 and the 100m gold medal in the 1982 and 1986 Asian Games.
A product of Project Gintong Alay during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., Mercado competed and won multiple medals in the Southeast Asian Games from 1981 to 1993.
De-Vega Mercado bloomed ahead of Muros-Posadas. In their early years, they even got to compete on the track, until Muros-Posadas found her niche in the jumping event, where she reigned for the longest time as the best in the country and the Southeast Asian region.
She won a total of 15 gold medals in the SEA Games, which also included stints in sprints, hurdles, and later on in heptathlon.
But the native of Magdiwang, Romblon was a force to reckon with in the long jump, an event she dominated in the SEA Games for a decade by winning the gold six straight times from 1989 to 1999. She won her first gold in the biennial meet in 1983 in Singapore.
Muros-Posadas also competed and won medals in the Asian Games and the Asian Athletics Championships, respectively, including a bronze in the long jump during the 1994 Hiroshima Asiad.
She was also twice an Olympian, representing the country in the 1984 (Los Angeles) and 1996 (Atlanta) Olympic Games. Four times she competed in the World Athletics Championships and five times in the IAAF World Indoor Championships.
She was a two-time PSA Athlete of the Year recipient (1993 and 1995).
Muros-Posadas retired from competition in 2001, shortly after winning the heptathlon gold in the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games. Now married to coach Jojo Posadas, Muros is a consultant for women’s sports at the Philippine Sports Commission.