Vinluan: A coach’s message

PARTICIPATION to the just concluded 2012 Invitational Cadet Judo Championships held August 18-19 at the Bedok Sports Hall in Singapore, was a privilege to five young Philippine Judo Athletes who gave their all hoping for the gold.

Joining the tournament is a total 268 Judokas’ from fifteen Countries is never a small number in international competitions, especially when we speak of China, Korea, Chinese Taipei, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Australia, Macau, Guam, Indonesia, Mongolia, and our very own Republic.

The tournament Gold medal rush for all participants was dominated by South Korea bringing home ten gold medals of the possible twenty four, Chinese Taipei with four gold medals, and China and New Zealand with two gold medals a respectively, leaves six gold medals to be contested by all other participants, luckily, with a limited five delegates, the Philippines took a piece of the pie with a lone gold medal courtesy of Jedd Andre Kim of Baguio City.

It may not be the number of delegates or the number of participants that we have to look in such tournaments but the potentials of our young athletes. The way they perform is tantamount to the ability of the Filipino athlete to pursue even an Olympic gold for that matter. But what affects our athletes in moments like this is the insufficiency of support.

Observation wise, Coach Jasmin Dino Kim made this message ““Our Philippine players can be placed on the map of Judo or in sports, if and only if full support will be given to our athletes from both government and private sectors, this way, we can build champions and bring home the Olympic Gold we have been longing for years. A little sacrifice (time and money) for our kids and players especially us parents who wants to help our children achieve their goals and dreams in life without jeopardizing their education, because in sports you develop discipline and once you develop discipline, everything follows.”

Team Leader Sussane Dino also comments, “In combative sports like Judo, this is one sport where our elusive dream of having a world and Olympic champions can be achieved. This is also a big potential for our young players to show off their skill and hardships just to reach for their dream which our country can be proud of. All we need is to provide proper trainings, sponsorships and the moral support to these players.”

What more can we expect from our sports experts, they are more or less running the show, if we were to promote such expertise in the sports disciplines, then it’s high time we have to know that sports should be practiced as an art and education, where we are to practice all its morals and discipline, to be able to give our best to enable us to learn. To our delegation to Singapore, CONGRATULATIONS!