And so the Incheon Asian Games came and went.
Very often, we tend to analyze our forays in multisport international competitions in the light of which athletes and disciplines came closest to winning medals.
Understandably, the basketball participation is meticulously dissected; more so now with the disappointment after the euphoria of the Fiba Asia silver medal finish last year and the creditable performance in the World Cup.
Other countries may not talk about their basketball games but Filipinos definitely do.
The painful reality is that the Philippines really struggled to pocket medals in the Asian Games on many fronts. The final tally was one gold, three silvers and 11 bronze medals.
There were valiant tries and tons of heartaches, especially in events like boxing and taekwondo where Filipinos could have finished higher.
However, the nefarious hydra of international judging once more reared its nasty heads and our hopeful officials could not understand how they could get raw deals too many times.
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As such, we ended up even with lesser medals than our Southeast Asian neighbors. Thailand had 12 golds; Malaysia and Singapore had five each while Indonesia had four. The neighbors were off the pace of China, Korea and Japan that simply had gold medal wins and opportunities in most events.
The medal haul disparity is indicative of the gaps in the Asian region and perhaps reminds the Southeast Asian countries that their regional SEA Games have to kick it up several notches to come close to Asian sports standards.
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It’s really time to take the bulls by their horns and dissect how the medal-heavy events can contribute to the Philippine campaign. Athletics, swimming, archery, gymnastics, shooting and of course, martial arts are where the medals are.
Athletics and swimming also have minimal subjective judging and finishes, times and distances are the performance barometers.
Here at home, many of these sports suffer from leadership intramurals, turf wars, and coaches and officials backing their own choices for slots in the national teams. It’s time to think twice, rise above differences and seriously support athletes from these medal-rich sports.
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On Twitter, I posed: “Daniel Caluag’s BMX gold win should be saluted. But how does China celebrate its hundreds of gold medals?”
The answer perhaps begins in the preparation that Chinese athletes go through. Practically all sports are given importance because the view is that there are potential gold-medal winners in every game.
We don’t have China’s resources or athlete base but we could surely borrow its will and determination to provide athletes of different sports opportunities to succeed.
It’s time to evaluate everything in Philippine sports and not just the basketball campaign.
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Twitter: @sportssev