I MAY not have much material wealth to give away but the gift of love that I have inherited from the Lord Almighty is what I am sharing with friends and foes that I have crossed paths with in my six decades of earthly existence.
From A to Z, Merry CHRISTmas to all!
* * *
“I am woman, hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore,” is the first line in feminist icon and Melbourne-born singer Helen Reddy’s in her ground-breaking song “I Am Woman” in the 1970s.
Yes, yes, oh yes. Ignore not the women of the world, they who have become successful in various fields.
The year 2016 saw the emergence of “Women Power” in the local and international sports scene.
Don’t even look very far, here in our midst are some of the best Filipina athletes who have made the country proud in the year that is about to come to a closure.
On top of the elite list is weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, an Olympic medalist in the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last August.
In baseball, three strikes at bat is a strike out. But in the case of the 25-year-old Zamboanga City-born Diaz, it was in her third trip to the Olympic well that she struck water.
The Airwoman First Class snared the silver medal in the 53-kilogram division of the women’s weightlifting competitions during the Rio Games for the Philippines’ third Olympic silver ever – and the country’s 10th medal overall – since joining the Summer Olympiad for the first time in 1924 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Diaz’s podium finish merrily brought to a halt the Philippines’ 20-year Olympic medal drought, with boxer Mansueto (Onyok) Velasco earning a silver medal in the light flyweight division during the 1996 Atlanta (USA) Olympics.
Diaz’s trailblazing performance came with several “firsts” for an Olympic medal-winning Filipino athlete. Among the 10 Olympic medalists, she is the first female, the first weightlifter and the first from Mindanao to accomplish the feat.
Undoubtedly and deservedly so, Diaz is a hands-down favorite to capture the Filipino Athlete of the Year award for 2016.
Then again, there were also a number of female athletes that came up with inspiring stories during what is otherwise another bleak year in Philippine sports that was marked by political patronage and incompetent leadership.
A 46-year-old polio victim, Josephine Medina, collected a bronze medal in the table tennis competitions during the Rio Summer Paralympics, having defeated Juliane Wolf of Germany for a podium finish. Medina dedicated her Paralympic feat to her late father, who was her inspiration in taking up table tennis.
In chess, 20-year-old, Legazpi City-born Janelle Mae Frayna of Far Eastern University became the country’s first female World Grandmaster and also earned a men’s International Master title during the 42nd World Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan last September.
The Perlas Pilipinas national basketball team topped the 9th Southeast Asian Basketball Association (SEABA) Championship for Women for a second time in Malacca, Malaysia last September with an unblemished 6-0 record and earned a trip to next year’s FIBA Asia Cup for Women (formerly known as the FIBA Asia Women’s Championship).
The first title came in 2010 when the Philippines hosted the SEABA games and Perlas Pilipinas posted a
5-0 record.
The 2016 SEABA tournament’s Most Valuable Player, Afril Bernardino, was a tower of power on home soil. Bernardino propelled the National University Lady Bulldogs to a third consecutive University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) crown with a perfect 16-0 win-loss card each time for an active 48-game winning streak. The 5-8 shooting guard was named the UAAP MVP awardee in each of the last three seasons.
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Bandera. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.