Carlos Yulo won his second gold medal in Paris by scoring 15.116 points on double vault. -Eulo Photos by AFP
There’s no doubt that 2024 was the greatest year ever in Philippine sports, highlighted by Carlos Yulo winning two gold medals in one Summer Olympics.
There’s also no doubt that at those Games in Paris, the Philippines was also the biggest laughingstock due to a regrettable, easily avoidable snafu that saw its national female golfers ruled out for all the wrong reasons.
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Yulo won the gold medal in artistic gymnastics men’s floor exercise, followed by a win on vault for a twin kill, setting off a celebration throughout the archipelago that wanted to see heroes wherever they could.
From President Marcos to ordinary Juan dela Cruz, Yulo received praise. And from everyone in the Philippines, especially its netizens, a national sports federation was criticized for somehow letting its Olympic punters play without their uniforms and PH flag-labeled gear.
But there were many other great achievements before and after those things happened.
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regret and glass
Alas, Pilipinas has endeared herself to a country that has suddenly gone crazy about women’s volleyball; Gilas Pilipinas attracted everyone’s attention in Latvia during the Olympic qualifying tournament and announced that it was his, with two of these names.
Philippine-born, Japanese-passport-holding Yuka Saso won her second U.S. Women’s Open last June, before Ryan Maliki ruled the U.S. Asterisk tally at the U.S. Women’s Amateur and U.S. Junior Girls tournaments, becoming the only female player Were. Second player to win both titles in the same year.
It would have been a real banner year for golf, until the chaos in Paris happened.
Still, 2024 will be about the Olympics. With Yulo’s achievement, the entire country will now look at sports as one where Filipinos can excel. Gone are the days when whenever a delegation was sent there, it was seen as a symbolic participation.
And when the next edition comes to Los Angeles in 2028, Yulo will again be at the forefront.
Yulo celebrates his first gold medal in the men’s floor exercise at the Bercy Arena, while golfer Dottie Ardina (photo below) shows the process by which she puts the PH flag on her playing shirt before every round in this Instagram collage Was spent taping.
“Definitely. When Yulo was asked if he was willing to go through that for a shot at acting again, he said, “I’ll be there 100 percent.” “Four years. That’s still a long time.” Way to go. I just hope I stay healthy and injury-free.”
The fame, the overwhelming welcome by a grateful nation, and a guaranteed seat in the pantheon of Filipino sporting heroes as well as the wealth that came from those victories, Yulo would never tire of enduring all the hardships again and again to earn them all.
The 24-year-old dynamo and pride of Leveriza in Manila was welcomed like a hero from a beloved country and showered with financial gifts from both the government and the private sector – estimated at more than P100 million – for his hard work abroad and Being separated from family for training.
Yulo was expected to be a gold medalist in Tokyo in early 2020, where weightlifting celebrity Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo broke the deadlock to win Olympic gold for the first time, ending a nearly century-long wait for the Philippines. In quadrangular union.
Although she failed to place in Paris and extend her Olympic tenure to five in a row, Diaz-Naranjo remains hungry as she looks to return to the global sporting spectacle four years from now.
However, for Yulo, doing it once, or maybe more, is a definite call – and the whole country believes it because the newest sports hero is still at the peak of his physical abilities.
boxers and their bronze
Two other Filipino bets in women’s boxing unfolded in the glamorous French capital, with Nesty Petecio securing a bronze medal in the women’s featherweight division after winning silver in Tokyo, also carving her legacy in stone.
Then there’s Aira Villegas, who won a bronze medal in the women’s light flyweight division in her first trip to the Olympic rings.
Complied with Yulo’s golden performance, these achievements bested the Tokyo edition of Diaz-Naranjo’s gold, a pair of silvers taken home by boxers Carlo Palam and Petecio, and professional boxer Eumir Marcial’s bronze medal.
With 22 Filipino athletes from nine sports, Paris 2024 did not go off without a hitch for Team Philippines, especially when Dottie Ardina expressed her displeasure about taping the PH flag to her chest before every round of women’s golf To do this, he took the help of social media. Tournament at Le Golf National.
“Sana with all the uniforms,” Ardina said in a social media post that immediately went viral, especially since she and Bianca Pagdangnan were the only players left to win gold medals for the Philippines in the final days of the Games.
“There are 22 athletes from the Philippines and us [together with Pagdanganan] the only ones without [uniforms],” Ardina said in Filipino. “We needed to buy T-shirts. oh my god what kind of olympics is this [participation] Is this?”
best golf finish
Dottie Ardina
The controversy continued after the Olympics, with even ordinary sports fans with little knowledge of golf seeking to blame the National Golf Association of the Philippines. Even the Senate intervened and investigated the snafu, which took much away from Pagdanganan’s joint fourth-place finish and Ardina’s 13th-place effort.
“Apart from not having proper uniforms, we had no golf balls, head covers, gloves and golf umbrellas. They only provided us with bags and golf shoes,” lamented Ardina, who chose to break her silence for the sake of the next Filipino Olympians.
Pagdanganan, who hit long shots, took the honor as the highest-ranked Filipino in women’s golf, tied with Australia’s Hannah Green, Korea’s Amy Yang and Japan’s Miyu Yamashita. She bested the ninth-place effort of Yuka Saso, who was also playing as a Filipino at Tokyo 2020.
And with Ardina finishing 13th despite playing with heavy hearts, the pair became the first Filipino pair to crack the top 15 of women’s Olympic golf despite the controversy.
And like Yulo, Ardina said that if she were asked to do it all over again, she would happily wear the PH uniform again, which would be a fitting uniform.
“I would do it all again, with all my heart,” she told The Enquirer in an exclusive interview after returning home from Paris. “Since the first day of my junior days, I have been very proud to represent the Philippines. I will keep doing it till the end of my career.”
Meanwhile, Yulo may be facing controversy even before coming home, as his troubles with his mother are being exposed on social media.
Chloe doesn’t like
The rift between mother and son began with Carlos’ alleged abuse of incentives at previous international competitions, before the gymnast’s mother, Angelica, reportedly did not like her son’s girlfriend, Chloe.
Carlos has since urged his mother to move on from the controversy and “move on”, as the family was dragged into public scrutiny.
“My message to you is to move forward. “I have forgiven you a long time ago,” Carlos said in Filipino in a TikTok video. “I also pray that you will always be safe, and that you will always be in a good place.”
He promised to continue it with Chloe, saying, “Let’s stop all this and celebrate the hardships and sacrifices of every Filipino athlete here in Paris.”
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Take it from Carlos Yulo, PH Sports will go on to have another banner year.
