HANGZHOU, China — It has always been the byword for Team Philippines in every multi-sport competition: Lose everything except the basketball gold.
Given that the opposite happened a few times before — the last one was two years ago in the Hanoi Southeast Asian Games — Gilas Pilipinas’ triumph here Friday felt all the more remarkable and heartfelt.
Philippine Olympic Committee president Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino was clearly moved it prompted him to say the basketball championship is “worth a thousand golds.”
Can’t blame him. The country waited 61 years to nail the all-important hardware in the sport closest to the Filipinos’ hearts.
Head coach Tim Cone put together his own version of Navy Seal Team 6 which picked up the pieces from the mess left behind by their comrades a month ago in the Fiba 2023 World Cup in Manila.
“It’s God’s will, prayers answered,” said Tolentino, who broke tradition by traveling to the luxurious Media Village inside the sprawling Asian Games Village to assemble a press conference.
“But that’s actually five gold medals won all in all, counting Eumir’s (Felix Marcial) silver,” he added.
Marcial settled for silver in his first foray in boxing’s light heavyweight division, a heavier category to the middleweight class where he clinched bronze in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics two years ago.
Tolentino stayed virtually mum after Ernest John “EJ” Obiena expectedly won the men’s pole vault title in an Asian Games record 5.90 meters for the country’s first gold medal in these games host China has dominated from the very beginning.
The target was to hit four golds to match the haul in Jakarta and Palembang four years ago.
But the bullseye became a blur in the distance when Margielyn Didal limped to a DNF in skateboarding and a short-handed golf team of Rianne Malixi and Lois Kaye Go couldn’t be on a par with the pros who are now allowed to play in the Asian Games.
“There are more chances, let’s see,” Tolentino said at that time, when the games were some 10 days old.
Then came that jiu-jitsu bonanza.
Despite going under the weather, Meggie Ochoa struck gold to validate her two world championships crowns and Annie Ramirez followed suit to make it 3-2-12 (gold-silver-bronze) for the Philippines at the bottom half but close to the median of the medal tally board.
And in less than 24 hours, the Philippines’ blissful 70-60 golden triumph over Jordan.
“After 61 years… Thank you Lord, we proved once again that the Philippines is the No. 1 in Asia,” Tolentino said.
