THIS 2018, during the 18th edition of the Asian Games held in the cities of Palembang and Jakarta, our Team Philippines placed 19th out of 37 nations.
This is bad and good. Bad because our SEAG rivals like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam all placed higher than us. Good because we did better last week than we did four years ago. This 2018, we pocketed 21 medals versus the 14 in Incheon in 2014. And, while we took home only one gold four years ago (Daniel Caluag in BMX cycling), in Indonesia last week we harvested four gold medals.
The champions?
Golden girls.
Hidilyn Diaz was expected to win gold and she won gold. The Olympic silver medalist will gain even more confidence from this victory as she prepares for the grandest stage: the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Margielyn Didal is our very own Cebuana hero. Unknown to much of the world prior to her gold medal victory in Indonesia, she is now popular nationwide. The YouTube videos of her smiling, dancing and enjoying her stunts during the Asian Games (with zero fear or pressure) generated hundreds of thousands of YouTube views.
Only 19, Margie was born and raised in Cebu City. And like Hidilyn, she will have a chance to earn the same shiny gold medal in Tokyo. For the first time in Olympic history, skateboarding will be an official medal sport in 2020 — one of only five sports added in the Tokyo Games. Plus, Diaz and Didal will each get at least P7 million from the POC, PSC and other donors.
The two other gold medals? We won them courtesy of golf.
Seventeen-year-old Yuka Saso won two gold medals: one in the individual contest and the other in the team event. Saso is expected to receive P9.3 million. The two other gold medalists (from the team event) are Bianca Pagdanganan and Cebu’s pride, Lois Kaye “LK” Go. A Cebu Country Club-trained former junior golfer, LK is the sister of one of our city’s very best golfers: LJ Go.
Regarding the prize money, there appears to be some complication with the millions allocated for the three women golfers. They’re amateurs. And based on the rules, specifically the ones of the US NCAA, they prohibit cash prize giveaways. I’m sure there’s a way to settle this technicality; in principle, the cash is not prize money but an incentive.
Also from Cebu and representing judo is Kiyomi Watanabe. She won silver in the Women’s 63-kg. category. Kiyomi will also set her target in 2020 in Tokyo.
Didal. Saso. Go. Pagdanganan. Diaz.
Five women. All Asiad gold medalists.
Want more “girl power?”
From taekwondo, the team of Janna Oliva, Juvenile Crisostomo and Cebu’s Rinna Babanto (taekwondo; Women’s team poomsae) won bronze.
More bronze medalists: The wushu bronze went to Agatha Chrystenzen Wong. Taekwondo bronze to Pauline Louise Lopez. Divine Wally for wushu (women’s sanda). There’s Margarita Ochoa for Jiu Jitsu. Cherry May Regalado for Pencak Silat. And Junna Tsukii for karate (50-kg.).
In all, of the 26 Filipinos who medaled, 10 were girls.
Women—not we, men—rule sports.