After slaving for a week, I boozed from 11 pm on July 30 until 3 am on July 31. I mixed Coke with Embassy and mere minutes after that moment… I realized that I was mixing the drinks wrong. Maybe it’s because the Malaysian “pancit canton” I ate felt wrong? The walls of my room were a bit shaky.
ONLINE DRINKING MADE ME THINK ABOUT THINGS!!!
AHEM.
Hours later, I woke up early to check out the Olympic stint of EJ Obiena. Ditto for Nesthy Petecio and Carlo Paalam.
I have never been this excited for a bunch of sporting events!
And this is going to be good for Philippine sports. Let’s face it – and say what you will with how the government “wasted” a lot of finances improving a lot of buildings. These buildings are not white elephants at the moment. Clark has become an awesome sports hub for training and for conducting international events that it raised our pogi points to the various international sports bodies.
And we have seen our athletes perform well by having great coaches, trainers, nutritionists, and opportunities outside the Philippines.
Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the best time to be a Team Pilipinas fan!
Admit it, the Philippines had a 19-man delegation that had promise. It helped that Hidilyn Diaz is coming off a silver medal finish and Carlos Yulo, Yuka Saso, and EJ Obiena have scored wins from various international tiffs.
I don’t know much about Obiena… and I never thought the boxing delegation would be this good.
Regardless, this is not a group that is coming to the Olympics for the sake of participation trophies. I have stayed late when Onyok Velasco tried to win the gold medal in 1996. I have looked closely at every Olympic, Asian Games, and SEAG up until the early 2010s when it was evident that Philippine sports will never live up to the least of our expectations.
This phenomenon is far from what we saw a few years… or eras back, I should say.
There is something cool about our current situation.
Even Singapore can say this when they won their first Olympic gold medal in 2016 with Michael Schooling. Sure, Schooling’s win never sent the country’s economy to the top but for a small nation as big as Makati City to have a gold medal before us… that’s just a proud moment for them.
When Vietnam started to claim medals, its stature improved.
And when the dominant powers are rendered beatable, the world has begun to see these countries in a different light. I mean, take a look at the United States. Sure, they are still top dogs but they are not as dominating. They are currently in third place with 16 gold medals and while they rule the total tally with 44 at the moment, they are neck to neck with China.
If you think we have beef with China, then how about the United States?
Olympic Saturday is just awesome.
People are going to the internet spreading love. Peace and happiness are evident despite the shitty predicament we are in. And these athletes are making sure that we have something to cheer about... reminiscent to Manny Pacquiao at the peak of his career.
Obiena went straight to 5.5 meters wherein he just made five attempts to secure a finals spot in Men’s Pole Vault.
Carlo Paalam took his Algerian foe to school with a unanimous quarterfinal round victory.
And the icing on the cake, Nesthy Petecio just gave the Philippines more reasons to celebrate this monumental run.
I am giggling like a schoolgirl as of this writing but for these guys… this is just a mere day to set up their date with destiny.
So yeah, you do your thing… and we’ll support you all the way.
TAKTE KAYO, BAKET ANG LULUPET N’YO!!!!!!