Does your child have what it takes to be an Olympian? The journey will be long and grueling, but it has to start somewhere.
Where were you when the Philippines finally got over the hump and got our first Olympic gold medal?
In 2021, with COVID still very much a real thing in Manila, my whole family was huddled on our living room sofa. I was explaining to my then 6-year-old son how the Philippines had once come so close to winning our first gold medal in the Olympics. I told him about Onyok Velasco, and how back in 1996, when I wasn’t much older than his older sister, we were robbed of a gold medal. He, of course, took it literally and asked if there were any criminals in the Olympic games. I assured him that there were not, although I did laugh at the irony.
The conversation stopped as we saw Hidilyn Diaz, the pride of Zamboanga, and soon to be the pride of the Philippines (not that she wasn’t already, being an Olympic silver medalist at the time), enter the platform. She was being flanked by her coach and now husband, Julius Naranjo, and nutritionist Jeaneth Aro. She steps onto the platform and takes hold of the barbell. 127 kilograms was standing between her and the collective Olympic glory of an entire nation.
What happened in the next 17 seconds and the following minutes of celebration was absolute cinema. She starts her clean attempt and you can hear her coaches screaming at her to get upright. She struggles for a split second but finally stands up for her jerk attempt.
On our couch, my wife and I are holding our breaths along with the millions of Filipinos glued to their screens to witness history. Hidilyn takes a deep breath and jerks the weight above her. Her split was a bit low for my liking but she managed to get upright. Right before the buzzer for a good lift sounds and she drops the weight, you can already see it in her face.
She knew that she had accomplished her goal.
We shouted and cried tears of joy at home. The kids were a bit too young to understand the gravity of what just happened. Our republic was 122 years old. We have joined the Olympic Games 22 times in that span. And this was our first gold medal.
The future of Philippine Olympians
Now, the 2024 Olympic Games are about to open in Paris, France. The Philippines will have a total of 22 athletes competing in this year’s games which marks the largest contingent we have sent in over three decades. Coincidentally, a hundred years ago in Paris was the first time we joined the Olympic games when we sent our lone participant, David Nepomuceno who was a sprinter.
In that one-hundred-year span, we have amassed a total of 14 medals. One gold, five silvers, and eight bronzes. The United States holds the record for most total medals all time with 2,629 total medals. Among our Southeast Asian neighbors, we are currently third in all-time medals trailing Thailand who has 35 medals, and Indonesia who has 37.
I say all this to make a point: It’s not easy to win an Olympic medal.
Usain Bolt said it the best: “I trained for four years to run nine seconds.” I actually like the second part of that quote more since it relates more to exercise: “And people give up when they don’t see results in two months.”
But the Jamaican Flash is right. The Olympics is the cream of the crop. Only the best athletes ever get the chance to step onto the Olympic stage. I mean, it says a lot that we are a basketball and volleyball country, and not once have we sent a contingent of those sports to the games.
To even qualify for the Olympic games is a feat in itself. The quest for an Olympic goal doesn’t happen overnight. Like the old commercial goes: Great things start from small beginnings (now try not to sing the rest of the jingle). Olympians are lifelong athletes and each and every one of them has a unique story of how they got to that stage. Stories of blood, sweat, and tears — we’re only talking about sometimes just trying to get to their training centers. It is unglamorous and often very lonely.
But being a lifelong athlete does not mean being a lifelong specialist. In fact, Usain Bolt grew up playing football and cricket. It was only in high school that he started taking track seriously. Some sports, though, are highly specialized. Michael Phelps has been swimming since he was seven and by the time he was a teenager, he was swimming 100 miles a week. Hidilyn learned weightlifting at the age of 10 when an uncle noticed that her body type would be an advantage in the sport.
So even with all of this, and the fact that it’s a given that you will need time (which we all have), effort (which you can control), and money (which can be the equalizer for most), you still might be looking at your child and thinking that you may have an Olympian in the house.
Raising Olympians
And yes, I say child and not mirror, because if you’re an adult and you’re reading this and you haven’t even thought about the Olympics, I’m sorry to say that 99% of the time, it’s too late. It’s not like a fun run where you wake up one day and suddenly decide that you’re running a five-kilometer race.
What’s next is that you have to start structuring the day of your child around that dream of becoming an Olympian.
School is a given for most, but everything other than school has to be devoted to training and improving. Their food has to be clean, their sleep should be ample, and their recovery should be calculated. Depending on the sport, you have to make sure that you are getting the proper equipment, and enough scheduled competitions to build that discipline of having skin in the game. Some of these competitions may be abroad or in a different province which means you will have to spend to get your child there.
We haven’t even talked about the different organizations, federations, and politicians involved in our national sports programs. And I’m not gonna touch that subject because it’s beyond my knowledge what goes on behind the scenes. That’s why we have elected officials for that.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone, I’m just trying to say that it’s a major decision. It’s one thing to engage in sports, it’s another for a child to train like an Olympian. To quote a sports giant’s recently released commercial: Winning isn’t for everyone.
Unfortunately, there’s one more thing other than time, effort, and money that you need to consider: genetics. This one you can’t control and the reality is, some people may have been born to be Olympians.
Two people who train equally but who are genetically different will have different ceilings in their athletic careers. Of course, genetics is not everything. But a genetically gifted individual with an Olympic work ethic will always beat somebody who is less genetically gifted with the same work ethic.
There are sports, of course, where skill is a bigger factor than physical prowess. This you can also control with your time and effort in practice. Still, having superior athleticism and skill is usually a recipe for success in the games.
The trade off, though, can be epic. There is no greater honor in sports than winning an Olympic medal. It means that at that point and time, you were the best in the world at what you do. This is why the allure is still there and why people keep chasing the Olympic dream.
So yes, to answer the original question, your child can be an Olympian. If your child genuinely enjoys sports, is physically active, and is willing to learn and train more, then they are already on that path. They need to show interest first because it’s hard to work for something that you don’t like.
If they see Nesty and Eumir and decide they want to take up boxing (and you’re okay with your child taking actual physical punishment) then encourage it. If they see EJ or Bianca or Dottie and find pole vaulting or golf interesting, encourage them. But first, check that your garage can fit a pole vault, and maybe look at the prices of golf memberships nowadays. If they are awed at Carlos doing somersaults take them to the jump yard and see what they’ve got.
It starts with your child, but it also starts with you, the parent. So you better ask yourself, am I willing to take the journey with my child?
In the end, your child might be an Olympian or they might not be. But by cultivating their love for sports and physical activity, you would have set them up for a future of discipline, good health, and camaraderie. And that is every parent’s dream.
Banner image from Andre Ouellet on Unsplash.
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