Team Philippines: Joanie Delgaco will be the lone Filipino in the rowing competition of the Paris Olympics 2024.
Joanie Delgaco is proof that sometimes, it’s OK to switch paths in sports.
The country’s top female rower was initially into volleyball and was on her way to carving her own niche there.
“I played in [the] Palaro (Palarong Pambansa),” the Bicol-born Delgaco said.
Then a house visit from a rowing official changed her life forever.
READ: Joanie Delgaco knows tough task ahead in Paris Olympics
“One of [the rowing national team’s] assistant coaches was looking for a tall girl,” said Delgaco during a dinner hosted for Philippine team athletes. “They saw me and talked to my parents and asked them if I wanted to try rowing.”
“When they first went to our house, I thought they wanted to talk to me about beach volley … I didn’t even know they suggested rowing. It’s pretty far, right? From a ball to a boat.”
Meet Joanie Delgaco who will compete for the Team Philippines at Paris Olympics 2024.
Delgaco, who was 17 at the time, eventually made the shift.
If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be sharing a meal with her fellow Nationals. The dinner where the Inquirer caught up with Delgaco was for athletes who qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Delgaco is flying to the glamorous French capital where she will compete against the best rowers in the world on sports’ grandest stage.
Whatever happens there doesn’t matter. In leaving volleyball, Delgaco changed her status as an athlete.
READ: Paris Olympics 2024: How to watch, when it starts, key dates
She is now an Olympian.
“At first, I really couldn’t sleep because I was qualified. I thought, ‘Is this it, am I achieving my dream?’ My dream was finally being fulfilled. That dream that I was just hoping for before,” she said.
The transition was far from easy. After all, she took up a new sport in her late teenage years so she had an awful lot of catching up to do. But with enough diligence, she started making her mark in the sport.
Back in April, Delgaco wrote a piece of history in Philippine rowing.
In the 2024 World Rowing Asian and Oceania Olympic Qualification Regatta in Chungju, South Korea, Delgaco clocked seven minutes and 49.39 seconds in the women’s single sculls finals to punch her ticket to Paris.
There’s a lot more ahead of her as far as the sport is concerned. But for now, she will soak in the experience of being an Olympian, a feat she would have never achieved had she stuck it out with her first sport.