INQUIRER SPORTS TELLING THE FILIPINO STORY TO THE WORLD
SO YOUNG, SO BRAVE Mary Antoinette Rivero (left) fights Argentina’s Vanina Sanchez Beron in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Pain of defeat
From page W5
Billiards Superman
soars, then nosedives
UNTIL he rose from obscu-
OF rity to land in the finals of
THE the 2007 World 9-Ball
BEST Championships in Manila,
Roberto Gomez was a less-
er light in the galaxy of feared Filipino bil-
liards aces in the international circuit.
Dubbed “Superman” by his friends for his
power-packed breaks, Gomez, a qualifer, was
the only Filipino left standing after the crack
foreign field took the fight out of Efren “Bata”
Reyes, Francisco “Django” Bustamante, Ron-
nie Alcano, Lee Vann Corteza, Warren Kiam-
co, etc.,
As citizens of this “epicenter of pool” held
their breath, Gomez kept in touch with
Britain’s Daryl Peach through superb place-
ment shots in the finals. The match was give
and take.
The Filipino took leads of 9-8 and 13-12
before cornering three more racks to move
within two of seizing the crown. Then the yips
took over.
Playing nervously now, the former reporter
for ABS-CBN yielded the next four racks,
eventually bowed to Peach, 15-17, and left
the hometown gallery in utter disbelief.
Double heartbreak
for durable Django
HE COULD have gone
OF home and abandoned his
country’s cause, and no-
THE
BEST body him.
would have blamed
The sudden death of his
8-month-old daughter, Mariel, at the home-
stretch of the 2002 World 9-Ball Champi-
onships in Cardiff, Wales, devastated Francis-
co “Django” Bustamante.
Rather than give in to his emotions and
quit, Bustamante decided to fight on and
eventually wound up runner-up to American
veteran Earl Strickland.
Drawing strength from the memories of his
dear daughter, whose picture he kept in his
wallet, Bustamante plodded on to beat coun-
trymen Nickoy Lining, 11-10, in the last 16
and bosom buddy Efren “Bata” Reyes, 11-8,
in the quarterfinals; and Taiwanese Ching
Shun-yang, 11-17, in the semifinals.
Bustamante nearly succeeded in going all
the way, posting a 15-13 lead over Strickland
in the finals.
He scratched on the break in the 29th rack,
however, allowing Strickland to run out the
rack and sweep the succeeding frames for a
close 17-15 triumph.
It was a heartbreaker, but Bustamante
didn’t mind. His mission over, he took the first
flight out of Wales to be in the wake of his
daughter.
ROBERTO Gomez tries to go for the kill
against Britain’s Daryl Peach in the 28th rack
of the 2007 World 9-Ball finals in Manila.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010 7
AP BEFORE THE STORM Members of the Zamboanga Little League team celebrate a win.
DJANGO Bustamante plays a shot with a grieving heart in Cardiff, Wales. His daughter Mariel died the day before he reached the World 9-Ball finals.
From SEA Games’
biggest winner to its
biggest loser
OF NEVER an overall winner
THE in the Southeast Asian
BEST Games since it first joined
in 1977, the Philippines
was understandably focused on ending the
drought when it hosted the biennial event for
the third time in 2005.
With a Games war chest boosted by hun-
dreds of millions in contributions from the
First Gentleman Foundation of Jose Miguel
“Mike” Arroyo and inspired by the bouncy,
nationalistic strains of Orange and Lemons’
“Pinoy Ako,” the country’s athletes finally
nailed the overall championship with 114
gold medals, 26 more than those of runner-up
Thailand.
Euphoria ran high. Miguel Molina, Cecil
Mamiit, Toni Rivero, Shiela Mae Perez,
Marestella Torres and Gretchen Malalad be-
came household names. A proud nation cele-
brated the bravery of the Filipino athlete, and
Arroyo brought all the gold medalists to Hong
Kong Disneyland.
Fast forward to the 24th SEA Games two
years later in Nakhon Ratchasima (formerly
Korat), Thailand.
Still on cloud nine when the competitions
unfolded on a cool December day in the
northern Thai province, the Filipino athletes
quickly came back down to earth with a big
thud.
Outperformed on all fronts by the vengeful
opposition, the Philippines suffered the ig-
nominy of failing to bag a single gold medal
for several days.
In the end, the meager harvest amounted
to 41 golds and the Filipinos lost the overall
crown to six-time SEA Games host Thais, who
toasted the 80th birthday of King Bhumibol
Adulyadej with an incredible haul of 182
golds.
Interestingly, the Philippine delegation
won the most number of silver medals in the
Games with 91.
More embarassing for the dethroned
champion Filipinos was the fact that they
ended up a far sixth in the overall medal tally.
Apart from Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam,
Indonesia and Singapore also outshone the
Philippines.
Back to the drawing board for the Philip-
pines? Yes, but scapegoats had to be found
first.
The chair of the Philippine Sports Commis-
sion resigned, while officials of the Philippine
Olympic Committee kept their posts.
The debacle was eventually blamed on the
lack of preparation of the athletes.