Philippines and its quest for an Olympic boxing gold
Everybody from in the different parts of the world knows who Manny Pacquiao is. Every time he makes his way into the ring, “The Fighting Congressman From Sarangani” in a David-like fashion courageously takes on behemoths of the boxing world. Weaving and bobbing through every punch, he doesn’t only pack a wallop of a punch but also brings his fellow Filipinos a moment to be proud of as he showcases Filipino talent for the world to see. As exciting as his matches are, the opposite can be said to Filipino amateur boxers vying to capture that elusive Olympic boxing gold, a feat we are still trying to accomplish after years of hardship and downfalls.
Philippines is one of the remaining countries who has failed to win a single gold medal since the inception of the Olympics in 1896. We only managed to win a total of 9 medals; 5 coming from Filipino boxers. The closest we’ve got in achieving such feat came in the 1996 Olympic games held in Atlanta, when Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco lost in a highly controversial gold medal match against Bulgaria’s Daniel Petrov Bujilov. In the following Olympics Games, we failed to net a single medal even after garnering accolades from different international boxing events and meets. Now with less than 2 years till the start of the 2012 London Olympics, Will we ever get a taste of gold or is this reality just a mere dream?
Fortunately, a grassroots program has been implemented to finance the development of aspiring boxers and hone their talents further to be at par with other countries in the Olympics. Suntok Ginto aims to give boxers world-class training and build facilities for boxers with the hopes of bagging the gold in the upcoming Olympics. Even though support from the private sector has been generous for the past few years, it’s still not sufficient to create an Olympic-level sports program. Funding has always been a problem; resources are divided through different sports. As a result; our athletes fail to deliver what they are expected to. The key here is to invest a big portion of your resources to one sport. Like our Asian neighbor, Thailand invested heavily in their boxing program and it reaped rewards in the 1996 Olympic Games, which they won their first gold medal. On the same note, Suntok Ginto serves as a wake-up call to the Filipino people to unite and for a single cause, a gold medal in the 2012 Olympic Games.
Despite hauling medals in the recently concluded Asian Games in Guangzhou, the attention given by the Filipino people and the government is at an all-time low and is usually overshadowed by other mainstream sports such as basketball and our recnt favorite, soccer. With the Olympics just around the corner, the road to the top is still filled of obstacles and challenges and it’s definitely a steep one.
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