Filipinos can learn from Thai experience

Filipinos can learn from Thai experience
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=129177

By GERRY CARPIO
The Philippine Star

BEIJING — Philippine sports officials said we should learn from the lessons of the Beijing Olympics to give Filipino athletes a higher level of competence and improve their medal chances in international competitions.

Philippine Sports Commission chairman William “Butch” Ramirez said the Philippines should now focus its efforts on the very few sports which give the country a realistic chance of winning a medal.

“Talent identity should start very early and those chosen must have the commitment to train long – eight to 12 years – to win a medal in the Olympics,” he said.

Thailand, which won two gold medals, one silver and two bronzes in the Beijing Olympics, had put its full support behind weightlifting and boxing and is now reaping dividends.

kitams. ok ang weightlifting sa mga pinoy pero yung boxing duda ako doon. sure nakapagproduce tayo ng mga magagaling na pro boxers pero olympics ito pre. sa olympic boxing tatlo ang kalaban ng pinoy boxer.
1. kalaban na boxer
2. referee
3. judges

open sa daya. hindi ko alam bakit pa tayo nag coconcentrate sa boxing at taekwondo. mahirap talagang manalo kung ganito.

The majority of Thailand’s 21 Olympic medals came from the boxing ring with the sports of weightlifting and taekwondo adding medals to the tally in recent years.

Light flyweight Payao Pooltarat won Thailand’s first Olympic medal, claiming bronze at the 1976 Games in Montreal, Canada, but the country had to wait another 20 years to crown its first Olympic champion.

Featherweight Somluck Kamsing won a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games and became a national hero. Similar honors were bestowed on flyweight Wijan Ponlid when he won gold four years later at the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia.

Thailand’s most successful Games was in Athens where, on the back of an outstanding four-medal haul by the country’s female weightlifting team, it collected a record eight medals, including an unprecedented three golds.

Light welterweight Manus Boonjumnong became the country’s third Olympic boxing champion while female weightlifters Udomporn Polsak (53kg) and Pawina Thongsuk (78kg) also collected golds.

Its Beijing achievements were two golds – by Somnit Jongjohor in the flyweight class in boxing and Jaroenrattanatarakoon in the women’s 53kg in weightlifting. It had a silver from Boonjumnong in the light welterweight in boxing and Puedpong Buttree in the women’s –49 kg in taekwondo.

The talent-identity program for boxers in Thailand starts at age 10 since this is the time kids are introduced to muay thai, the national sport.

There is at least one muay thai boxing tournament every day throughout Thailand and there are more on Saturdays and Sundays,” Pradit Nitiyanant, senior editor of a Bangkok newspaper said.

They are trained since they are 10 years old in the national boxing pool, from which the best Olympic materials are chosen to undergo intensive training in Cuba under Cuban mentors then sent to Europe to test their mettle in a series of tuneup tournaments.

in short grass root level ang training nila. dito sa pilipinas basketball lang ang ganyan

Pradit said Thailand didn’t know much of international boxing until over 40 years ago when boxing legend Gabriel “Flash” Elorde went to Thailand to teach muay kids his art of boxing.

“Your Gabriel Elorde and Papa Sarreal (the father in law and coach) introduced international boxing to Thailand,” he said.

Pradit said Thailand trains three generations of weightlifters under a resident Chinese coach that handles one lifter for at least five years until he is ripe for Olympic competition.

The young generation of lifters ensures that the country has new successors for retiring Olympians, he said.

Before the financial crisis hit Indonesia in 1996, the country was the world’s best source for top archers. Now, Indonesia’s main concentration for the Olympics is badminton. Eighteen of the country’s 26 medals come from badminton, with its 2008 delegation contributing one gold, (men’s doubles), one silver (mixed doubles) and one silver (women’s singles). All five of Indonesia’s Olympic champions are badminton players.

dapat talaga focus ng pilipinas ay sa mga sports na definite ang results, sports na kita kaagad ang result ng effort mo, like weightlifting, archery, at shooting. forget basketball, height is might, eh lahi tayo ng malilit. kahit puro fil-am ang padala mo sa mga qualifying tournaments eh talo pa rin ng china at korea. pang south east asia lang tayo. swimming forget it. again pang matangkad at mahahabang braso lang ito. boxing ang taekwondo, masyadong controversial. palagi na lang talo sa mga judges.

Football is the national sport of Indonesia but badminton has a very large base of practitioners like muay thai does in Thailand. Their domination in the world has produced a steady supply of international talents for the Olympics.

It has also gained headway in weightlifting where it won two bronze medals in Beijing.

Vietnam, toughened by one of the longest, brutal wars in recent history, has put emphasis on its taekwondo training. With its lean delegation to the Olympics, it had only two Olympic medals – the first in 2000 and the second in 2008 – both in taekwondo.

Malaysia is shifting from the medal-rich event of swimming to badminton while Singapore is into table tennis, a low-profile sport ruled traditionally by China.

Ramirez said giving all 36 sports in the Philippines equal support would not only spread the resources thin but will lessen the full support elite sports need to be competitive in the Olympics.

“Even if you have a P30 million Olympic program a year, that won’t solve the problem because it s just a short cut. We need long term efforts and long term commitments,” he said.

nasaan ang basketball program ng thailand at iba pang asean countries? wala. alam kasi nila na waste of time ang basketball sa sports program nila.

Team Philippines: Who’s the biggest flop of all? RECAH TRINIDAD ET AL

Team Philippines: Who’s the biggest flop of all?
By Recah Trinidad
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:07:00 08/14/2008

http://sports.inquirer.net/inquirersports/inquirersports/view/20080814-154542/Team-Philippines-Whos-the-biggest-flop-of-all

BEIJING—They flew here to look for the best and brightest athletes but, after three dismal Philippine failures—in shooting, weightlifting and swimming—members of the Filipino media were caught wondering who’s the dumbest among the early Filipino losers.

That’s no longer funny. Especially for Jose Cojuangco, intrepid head of the Philippine Olympic Committee, who in Manila loved to say he smelled a medal for the Filipino in this 29th Summer Olympics.

what the fuck! ano pinagsasabi nitong kumag na ito? ano klaseng columnist ito si recah trinidad. ikaw recah ang biggest flop sa olympics. second biggest flop is your son, chino.

hirap kasi sa mga sports columnist mga frustrated athletes. rereklamo ka pa recah at dismal ang performance ng philippines sa olympics eh kayong mga sports columnist din dapat sisihin kasama ang mga sports officials. baket? eh puro basketball ang sinusulat at pinopromote ninyo. palagi na lang basketball ang laman ng mga sports pages. paano na ang ibang sports? NBA, PBA, UAAP, NCAA, etc. sus hindi talaga mananalo ang pilipinas ng gold medal sa olympics kung basketball lang ang binibigyan ng pansin. tapos mag rereklamo ka recah na bano ang mga pinoy sa ibang sports.

hay naku recah wala kang kwenta. so what kung walang medal mauwi ang mga atleta natin makakakuha ka ba ng bonus mula sa inquirer? ano magiging proud ka as a filipino?

Good that Cojuangco, an incurable optimist, did not predict an outright first gold medal for the Philippines.

A grizzled politician, the man also knew the honest limitations of the 15-man RP contingent that pitifully got outnumbered by free-riding officials.

* * *

So let the search for the biggest flop begin.

Shooter Eric Ang did the (dis)honor of starting silly by shooting anything but the birds in the trap event, RP’s first bid on the first day of Olympic action.

Ang, said to be a crony of a Malacañang’s favorite governor from the North, did his best as promised but, as fate would have it, missed all but one of the targets to finish at the bottom.

He got disoriented, overwhelmed, he explained, obviously thinking he was out on a merchant group hunt for tame October snipes.

Instantly, they also had to wonder if this was the same lone entry that made Cojuangco predict a possible medal in shooting.

* * *

In fairness to Hidilyn Diaz, a cute, tiny weightlifter, she had said she did not realistically hope for a medal here, not even if all the top bets fell ill on competition day.

The daughter of a tricycle driver from Zamboanga, she inevitably developed a liking for the sport after her unforgiving daily task of hauling hefty pails of water from a far-off well for household use.

Of course, she could have finished better than 11th in a field of 12.

A bit odd but you also have to look and listen as she made the wholesale, straight-faced vow to win in the next Olympics.

“I’m sure I can win in London,” she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer as she toured the vast, sun-beaten, crowded Tiananmen Square on Tuesday.

Her best lift of 107 kilos in the snatch bested the RP mark; although the eventual winner did 134 kilos.

She’s only 17 and her coach, Seoul Olympian Ramon Solis, pointed to the fact that the gold hauler from host China team was already over 30, twice the age of Hidilyn.

* * *

That alone should put Diaz out of the dumbest scroll.

But readily giving shooter Ang a run for his money at the end of action Tuesday was the celebrated swimmer Miguel Molina, voted most outstanding athlete of the 2007 Southeast Asian Games.

After surprisingly pulling out of his first event, Molina returned to the pool to take a shot at the 200-meter breaststroke semifinals later Tuesday.

Lucky he did not drown.

Molina was so mediocre he could only clock 2:16.94, a far cry from the 2:16.62 he registered in breaking the national mark while in the United States.

That record swim, by the way, qualified Molina to the Olympics but the phenomenal tanker who did that feat has so far not shown up in the current Beijing Summer Games.

* * *

Anyway, there should be a turn for the better when boxer Harry Tañamor, the top RP medal hope who was still overweight Tuesday, has fought his first bout against a Ghanian late Wednesday.

At least two other top medal bets, taekwondo’s Antoinette Rivero and Tshomlee Go, will join in the lonely medal hunt later.

Meanwhile, long jumper Henry Dagmil, whom Cojuangco had predicted would make the standard and readily qualify, will compete on Saturday.

Dagmil made it as the country’s mandatory male entry in athletics after failing to sail past the Olympic qualifying mark despite repeated tries.

There are solid signs he would be a lead flop among failed RP campaigners here after Saturday.