BOXERS Carlo Paalam and Nesthy Petecio have been given the honor of carrying the Philippine flag during the opening ceremonies of Paris 2024.
It’s an incredible honor for the Tokyo 2020 silver medalists as only a handful of athletes have been given the privilege of leading the country's delegation in the traditional Olympic Parade of Nations.
This, however, also comes with big pressure knowing that the country has high hopes that they will perform on the big stage.
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But they aren’t the first boxers to hold the flag bearing duties for the Philippines in the Olympics.
Actually, there have been six boxers before who were selected as the country’s flag bearers for the opening ceremonies.
Manfredo Alipala was the first in Tokyo 1964. The welterweight from Murcia, Negros Occidental was riding high from winning the gold in the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta and hurdled Iraq’s Al-Kharki Khalid in the preliminaries, but bowed to Kichijiro Hamada of Japan in the round of 16.
It took 28 years before another fighter got the nod in Arlo Chavez, who was handed the honor in Los Angeles 1992.
The light welterweight from Cebu beat Moses Opute James of Nigeria in the round of 32 before falling to Leonard Doroftei of Romania in the round of 16.
Luckily, the Philippine boxing team did not come home empty handed in that journey as Roel Velasco got a bronze medal in the light flyweight division.
The following Olympics, another boxer in Reynaldo Galido was selected to carry the country’s flag during the Atlanta 1996 opening ceremonies, but he bowed to Oktay Urkal of Germany in the round of 32.
His teammate Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco, though, made sure that the boxing team got medals in back-to-back Games as he took home the silver after a tough loss to Daniel Petrov of Bulgaria in the final.
Boxing was once again handed the flag-bearer duty in Athens 2004.
Christopher Camat was originally selected, but opted to hand the reins to his teammate and veteran Romeo Brin as the former had to prepare for his opening match in the middleweight division the following day.
Brin, a gold medalist in the light welterweight division of the Asian Championships, reached the round of 16 before he lost to Manus Boonjumnong of Thailand. Camat, unfortunately, also got beat by Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov of Russia in the round of 32.
Beijing 2008 was a unique one.
Originally selected to be the flag bearer was swimmer Miguel Molina, but President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo intervened and asked the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) to reconsider the choice before recommending Manny Pacquiao to be given the responsibility. The soon-to-be Filipino boxing legend was coming off a victory over David Diaz to win the WBC lightweight crown.
Then-POC president Peping Cojuangco eventually obliged, with Molina being moved to the closing ceremonies while Pacquiao marched on to lead the Filipino delegates at the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest.
To this day, Pacquiao remains as the only Filipino Olympic flag bearer to never compete in the Games.
Eumir Marcial was the last boxer to be given the flag bearing duties during Tokyo 2020, but this actually almost didn’t come to be.
Marcial came in as a replacement for pole vaulter EJ Obiena, who was originally chosen but had to be changed due to the strict protocol instituted by the hosts requiring flag bearers to be in Tokyo 48 hours before the ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Obiena was set to arrive in Japan on the very same day as the opening.
Thus, POC president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino tabbed Marcial to share the duties with judoka Kiyomi Watanabe.
Marcial, too, proved to be an exception as to this day, he remains as the only flagbearer to win a medal, bagging a bronze in the men’s middleweight division.
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