IT'S the Olympics and the whole country is into sports. It’s Yulomania, in particular, with parents wanting their kids to be like Caloy. Sad to say this, but it will not happen. Caloy is a generational talent. The next Caloy in gymnastics will probably appear in 20 years, if we’re lucky.
The last Caloy, another generational talent, was Caloy Loyzaga. That was in the ‘60s and, up to now, the next Caloy Loyzaga has not surfaced. Yet every generation since Loyzaga has taken to basketball like it was the only sport in the world that mattered.
When Hidilyn Diaz won the gold at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (the pandemic had delayed the Games by a year), there was heavy enthusiasm about how the sport would soon become the next big thing in the country. People talked about building gyms for weightlifting. Sports officials prodded communities and barangays to set up small spaces for young people to come and lift weights. Everyone said it should be doable. After all, equipment for the sport, just not the kind used by Hidilyn, is cheap and available.
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Well, we’re three years since Hidilyn’s victory, and I haven’t seen a surge in the popularity of the sport, nor have I seen any one coming rising that is close to Hidlyn’s talent.
Yes, I agree, Hidilyn was not an instant sensation. It took her years and many setbacks before reaching the pinnacle of her sport. And, yes, there might be a Hidilyn there outside hiding, sweating, and bulging, but I dare say the boom-and-bust is over for weightlifting.
I’m afraid the same will happen to gymnastics. Every Juan, Pedro, and Jose can be out there jumping on beds, somersaulting, jumping, and tumbling with visions of becoming the next Caloy.
But gymnastics, like weightlifting, is not a sport easily embraced by young kids, unlike, for instance, basketball, football and volleyball, three sports enjoying remarkable popularity and engagement.
Gymnastics and weightlifting are, like good wine, an acquired taste. You have to really take to these sports slowly before you finally embrace them and never let go because they, in fact, fulfill you.
Even here, weightlifting enjoys an advantage over gymnastics. It is cheap to become a weightlifter. No fuss about equipment, just barbells of varying weights for starters, and a simple indoor or outdoor space.
Weighed down
Yet despite these simple requirements, weightlifting as a sport in these parts has never gone through the roof. Even after Hidilyn, it’s still struggling to find devoted adherents and serious competitors. In the Paris Olympics, the country managed to send three lifters, but its male bet, John Febuar Ceniza, has already been eliminated. The other two, Vanessa Sarno and Elreen Ando, are still to see action.
In contrast, gymnastics has a bigger mountain to climb: The availability of gyms and the cost of setting them up. The big space the sport requires, with the whole thing needing at least 300-400 square meters and, for world-class contests, no less than 1,000 square meters. The price of equipment is also astronomical. When Tarlac’s Clark Sports Complex needed apparatuses, authorities opened bidding at P25 million.
With so few gymnastics gyms to go to, it is definitely difficult to get young people to take up the sport. Even with their interest piqued by the Yulo spectacle — where do they go? Contrast this with basketball courts which may be found literally everywhere.
In Metro Manila at least five or six places offer gymnastics classes: Club Gymnastica, The Foundry Fitness and Athletics, Parkour Intramuros, I Go Beyond Yoga, Chrome Divas Fitness Studio, and the Rizal Memorial Complex.
But for those looking for the thrill of world-class gymnastics equipment, there are only two: at the Rizal Memorial and at the Clark Sports Complex.
So, if you wish to be like Caloy Yulo, I guess you can go for it. Good luck.
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