She’s tall, athletic, black, and beautiful. Meet Alexie Mae Brooks Caimoso who is tipped to become the next star of Philippine Athletics.
Standing 5’9, the 20-year old model, beauty queen from Iloilo is slowly inching her way towards her dream of carrying the Philippine flag as a member of the Philippine athletics team
Her gold-medal finish in the heptathlon in the recent Ayala Philippine Athletics Championship in Baguio City booked her a slot in the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) national training pool.
She did not only top the 10-discipline event and beat the 2019 Southeast Asian Games Sheila Dequinan, but the Ilonga stunner also surpassed the qualifying standard for the 2022 Vietnam SEA Games slated for May.
Alexie had a total of 4,734 points, which were four over the 4730 points tallied by the 2019 SEA Games women’s heptathlon event.
For her feat in the Nationals, she was awarded the Iron Maiden special award.
The heptathlon is an ultimate test of skills for women as they compete in a two-day seven events including 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put and 200m, long jump, javelin, and 800m run.
Alexie’s continued ascent to the top is a result of hard work and perseverance, physically and emotionally. She never met her American father and she doesn’t have any idea of the whereabouts of her mother. But she was raised well by her grandmother in Iloilo.
She started competing and winning the Palarong Pambansa high-jump competition until she was recruited and became a scholar at National University in Manila as a college student. Discovered by the legendary Ilonggo mentor Noel Diel, she became the 2017 Palarong Pambansa long jump queen with 1.65 personal best.
Back in Iloilo, she was also competing in local beauty pageants, including the Miss Teen Iloilo in 2015. She was Mutya ng Buga in 2013.
She is now one of the most sought-after models in the industry. Becoming a beauty queen was not an easy route for Alexie who experienced bullying because of her color.
“I am a victim of body shaming and ostracism or what they rebranded as cancel culture or call-out culture because I am far different from the norm because I don’t look like the typical beautiful Filipina woman that they keep on stereotyping,” she wrote on her social media page.
“Some would even call me a copycat or a downgraded version of a past beauty queen. It stings but it will never drag me down. For I am unique, I am different, I am peculiar. I am Alexie Brooks.”
For this year, Alexie is torn between two worlds—carrying the Philippine flag as an athlete or representing the country as a beauty queen.
This early, she is tipped to be one of the top favorites if she decides to compete in the 2022 Miss Universe Philippines, owing to her uniqueness, capable of becoming the first-ever Black Filipina to win the crown.
Alexie was a consistent honor student back in her high school days and currently works as a motivational speaker so the question-and-answer portion should be an easy task.
Beauty, brain, and athleticism—Alexie is definitely a complete package.
