IT'S a sight never before seen. The ladies took the cudgels for everyone in the Philippine team at the Asian Games! The country has so far won four gold medals — all them delivered by the so-called distaff side. Even with the bronzes, of which we’ve won 13, eight were bagged by women athletes.
For the Philippines, this is the most surprising development in the Asian Games being held in Indonesia. In past Asiads, men medalists always greatly outnumbered women. In fact, only one female athlete had won an Asian Games gold medal since 1990: Mikee Cojuangco in equestrian at the 2002 Busan Games.
The tables are turned. And, unless boxing delivers, these Games will be zero gold from male athletes, marking the first time such a medal standing would happen in Philippine sports history.
Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz started it in the early days of the campaign. She got the country its first gold. And she did this amidst the immense pressure for her to perform well. After her silver at the Rio Olympics in 2016, her countrymen fully expected her not to win just any medal but the gold. She got them applauding.
If Hidilyn was the favorite, that was not the case with the women’s golf team. Some quarters conceded that this was the strongest team ever assembled for the Asian Games, but no one was saying our lady golfers would come in with a gold. That would’ve been too much hype.
Then it happened. In one of the most inspiring stories to emerge from the Games, the team won — not one but two — gold medals and, as bonus, one bronze, in just one event. There was jubilation from top sports officials, who had, if they but admitted it, worried that the country could go home with just one gold, a repeat of the woeful 2014 campaign.
Just one gold meant clear failure, opening these officials to severe criticism back home. After all, the immediate-past Philippine Olympic Committee leadership was ousted precisely for ineptness. One gold would have duplicated that ineptness.
The new POC leadership really has to thank Yuka Saso, plus the other members of the three-women golf team, Bianca Pagdanganan and Louise Kay Go, for saving their necks — and just maybe, prolonging their job tenures.
There’s no need to elaborate on Saso’s widely chronicled one-for-the-ages final round six-under-par 66 that netted her the individual golf gold medal, or Pagdanganan’s incredible matching 66. Suffice it to say that both scores were fashioned in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the final round.
And as though the gods of sports were truly beaming on the country’s sports leadership, Margielyn Didal, a 19-year-old from Cebu, produced some of the most breathtaking and compelling routines to capture the skateboarding gold medal on Wednesday.
And as if this were not enough, last night Fil-Japanese Kiyomi Watanabe tried to give the country its fifth gold medal when she fought in the finals of the 64 kg. judo competition. She lost, but earned Team Philippines its first silver of the Asiad. Another female.
What can one say? Girl power has just saved Philippine sports!
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