Why we broke at the Olympics

Our failure at the Beijing Summer Olympics has received differing reactions both across the mainstream media and the blogosphere, prominent views amongst them are those which express dismay and blame the athletes for being either too confident or underestimating to the significance of rigorous practice.

Mind me, sports in the Philippines really took a dwindling status since the day it became one of the avenues of politicking including public relations, promotion of personalities, betting and gambling, and electioneering. Sports is being used as an instrument of blowing the egos of politicos stuffin' our athletes with promises of material wealth and yes, for the love of money everything became commercialized from basketball to boxing, the reason why the Philippines cannot erect a monument of prominence in the world of the best sporting nations.

On Solar Sports I watched a teary athlete from our Olympic contingent complain that he was not given enough attention during his preparations. It is true that they were trained just months before the Games (Philippines Sports Commission Chairman Butch Ramirez admitted it), something quite portending of the results when compared to countries whose athletes had already been training for the events more than three years earlier. Worse, the Olympian said that he practiced in irregular periods with non-permanent trainors and monitormen, reflecting the situation of our delegates whose needs in the field were not given immediate support. They were treated insignificantly and left to themselves like hens expected to lay golden eggs after some time. Our strategies are very far from other nations' which study with close scrutiny the performance of their players during practice, providing proper recommendations and additional facilities to improve them whenever necessary. It doesn't need much money because the right mind would no doubt apply improvisation, as what contingents from poor countries in Africa and South America did which led them to exceptional successes that even broke records.

Our athletes should not be the ones to blame. Put the target on the backs of the PSC and the Philippine Olympic Committee for not learning from the two previous Olympiads where we likewise zeroed in the medal tally. Sports is never improved but misguided, and there is no optimum technology advanced to the athletes; I would not be surprised if facilities used in their trainings were substandard.

And of course she is not happy. PSC's Ramirez picks the gun but saves his head by arguing that “the PSC has not received money it should be getting” for sufficient training of our Olympians.

That makes a ridiculous stimulus out of the cash incentive the government raised to 15 million per gold medal. I do not believe that the best idea they could think of was to put a carrot in front of a donkey to make it move, though our players were not into the pledge, but still it made a wrong motivation when the P10M additional to the P5M the cash incentive law provides per gold medal could have done a very big help if appropriated as training funds. But it was too late. It is difficult to energize someone to try to do it money in mind over rickety matter. What they need was improved technology and close attention to enhance their systems to a degree comparable to the upper-box if not champion performers of the world.

Dammit. The light of Reason and Common Sense is really closing along the chaotic horizon of the always-dimming Philippines.

P. S. It is in Wushu where we got our only gold medal; however, Wushu being only an exhibition sport, the victory is not counted in the medal tally. Nevertheless it gives some consolation; glass of water for a strong pint of intoxicating wine.