INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines—Upon seeing the tiny athlete with a gold medal around his neck, passengers on the immigration queue broke into applause. Tourists asked to take photos and a passenger pointed a kid to the medalist passing by.

Emerging as country's lone cause for celebration amid a failed Olympic medal bid, 24-year-old Willy Wang arrived to cheers at the Manila airport on Monday, holding up his glistening reward after eight months of grueling training in wushu.

"I am happy because we got a gold in the Olympics. Even if it's a special event, I am happy that we won a gold," said the Filipino-Chinese world champion in heavily accented Filipino.

Wushu is still an exhibition or demonstration sport in the Olympics and therefore, medals won in the sport, do not count in the official medal tally of nations.

Wang, who started training in the martial art when he was 12, snagged the gold in the demonstration event held on the side of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where the country's small delegation surrendered to tough competition.

And with his win, the Philippine national anthem got to be played once in Olympic City.

Wang shared that other Filipino athletes in Beijing were happy about his win despite missing their own medal goals in the quadrennial.

"Their training was really hard, they did all the preparation and they did not get any medals, but at least I got one for the country. My friends [from other events] are happy about it," he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer while waiting at the baggage carousel at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2.

He believed in the strong chances of wushu to become an Olympic event soon, though he might not be there to represent the country anymore.

"By the next Olympics, I might already have retired, because that's still a long time away, four years... Maybe [I'm retiring] next year, because I'm old [for the sport], I'm already 24. I'd like to do business instead, maybe on computers," he said with a grin.

Wong arrived on a Philippine Airlines flight around 5:40 p.m. on Monday, with officials of the Philippine team, among them Peping Cojuangco and the team's chief of mission, Representative Monico Puentevella.

Said Cojuangco of Wang's sport: "I think it has a good prospect because the Chinese are really working hard to get it in, there's a big effort to get it in."

Asked about the Philippine team's performance, he said: "They performed as best they can. They broke their own Philippine records. They did the way we expected them to do, only the competition was really tough."