Saturday, August 9, 2008

GOLD . . . HOPEFULLY. . .

If Victoria Manalo Draves and Natalie Coughlin only decided to compete for the Philippines in the 1948 London and 2004 Athens Olympics or if only someone put forward this choice we would have won four Olympic gold medals in both diving and swimming. If only Arianne Cerden~a played bowling as regular event in 1988 in Barcelona or boxer Anthony Villanueva and Mansueto "Onyok Velasco were not pick pocketed of the decisions during the 1964 Tokyo and 1996 Atlanta Olympics, we would have counted our gold harvest to seven. These historical facts will always remain as probabilities for our ardent ambition to win the Olympic gold. Our dreams and hope of winning our first ever Olympic gold medal always turned out into frustrations. Since the Philippines joined the Olympics in 1924, Filipino athletes have only won a total of nine Olympic medals. Seven bronze medals and two silver. It is nearly nine decades our athletes went home empty handed of the sneaky mint. Yesterday, the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the most spectacular, marvelous and extravagant in history unlocked the door for the entire Filipino to renew once again our united visions and optimisms in prayers to wind down the 84 long years of Olympic gold medal drought and defeats. The Philippines has produced some of the finest athletes in the arena of amateur and professional sports but yet has to ascertain our prowess in the Olympics. Jeff Fenech, International Boxing Hall of Famer said "An Olympic medal is the greatest achievement and honor that can be received by an athlete. I would swap any World Title to have won gold in the Olympics" Will our athletes this time bring home the gold? With a bit of luck . . .

Stronger Than Impressions