MANILA, Philippines – It’s shaping up to be another busy year for Philippine sports. If things fall into place – meaning the athletes get ample support and time to prepare, sports officials do their jobs and make the athletes’ welfare a priority, plus a bit of luck – then the potential of 2023 becoming a banner year for Philippine sports will not be at all a pipe dream. 

This will probably be the only time that the Asian Games and the Southeast Asian Games will be held in the same year. And with 2023 also serving a qualification year for the 2024 Paris Olympics, our national athletes will have a full schedule on their plates.

WORLD CUP FEVER

The Philippines will compete in two World Cup events in 2023 – one in basketball, the sport closest to the hearts of Filipinos, and the other in football that, though not as popular in the country, has produced a team that is slowly becoming a Filipino sports fan favorite. 

Gilas Pilipinas

The country will host the FIBA World Cup from August 25 to September 10, only the second time that the biggest international men’s basketball event will be staged in the Philippines. The first time the World Cup was brought to the Philippine shores was 45 years ago when the tournament was held at the Araneta Coliseum and the Rizal Memorial Coliseum from October 1-14, 1978.

The Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) and the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) have prepared a blueprint that would give coach Chot Reyes and the Gilas Pilipinas squad roughly three months to prepare for the competition, enough time to mold the team into fighting form. 

In the last two editions of the World Cup, the Philippines only notched a solitary victory. This was in 2014 when Reyes piloted Gilas to a win in its last game versus Senegal. Hopes are high that the home crowd will have more than just one victory to celebrate this time around.

The chances of that happening look promising. 

With a roster that will feature Utah Jazz starter Jordan Clarkson, some of the best PBA players from the SMC and MVP groups, young giant Kai Sotto, and the Filipinos imports from the Japan B. League, Gilas Pilipinas might just have the materials to make a deep run in the tournament. 

But there are two other tournaments that will require Gilas’ attention.

Not even a strong showing in the World Cup will make up for another debacle in the Southeast Asian Games, hence Gilas will need to bring their A-game to Cambodia. This will be a challenge given that the PBA will end a week before the SEA Games, once again giving Gilas Pilipinas a less than ideal buildup for the tournament. 

Then there is the matter of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China in September. The last time the Philippines bagged a medal in Asia’s premier quadrennial athletic competition was in 1998 when the Tim Cone-mentored Centennial team won the bronze. 

The fact that the tournament will take place two weeks after the World Cup will result in a Gilas team which will be in game shape. There is still no guarantee that Clarkson can and will suit up in the Asian Games. A silver lining for the Philippines is that Justin Brownlee or Angelo Kouame could be tapped to play for the team.

Stellar performances from Gilas Pilipinas in this year’s tournaments will be a fitting reward for Filipino fans who have sailed with the national team even through the rough waters of the previous year.

Filipinas

The Philippine women’s football team made history after securing the country a spot in the pinnacle of football for the first time – the FIFA World Cup.

One cannot help marvel at how much the team has grown and improved since they placed fourth in the 2022 FIFA Women’s Asia Cup in India a little over a year ago. 

The team will aim to surpass their bronze medal finish in the SEA Games and put themselves in a position in the Olympic qualifiers to earn a ticket to Paris 2024, but the biggest prize is still the World Cup. 

Make no mistake about it, the Filipinas are going to New Zealand with the intention of making it past the group stage and pulling off a surprise or two in the knockout stages.  

The Philippines’ ranking of 53 in the world does not reflect how good the squad has evolved under coach Alen Stajcic.  

The results of their matches in 2022 prove this. The Philippines notched victories over Asian rivals Chinese Taipei, ranked 39th in the world; No. 48 Myanmar; and the World Cup-bound and world No. 34 Vietnam. The Filipinas beat No. 41 Thailand twice and blasted 51st-ranked Papua New Guinea in two games last December. The Filipinas also kept in pace and narrowly lost to world No. 23 Ireland and No. 24 New Zealand, and earned draws against two South American teams, 37th-ranked Costa Rica and No. 38 Chile.  

There is a prevailing sense that the Filipinas are inching their way to a level where they could soon get over the hump and snatch wins over some of the top 30 teams in the world. 

In the World Cup, the Filipinas will be the lowest ranked team in their group which is composed of the host squad New Zealand, 21st-ranked Switzerland, and world No. 13 Norway. 

In the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, a number of teams advanced to the knockout stage with four points from one win, one draw, and a loss. But safe passage would be two wins. It will be tough but not improbable. 

Such goals would have been unthinkable over a year ago. But the Filipinas, to borrow a phrase from Stajcic, have been punching above their weight since last year. There is no reason they cannot replicate this in the World Cup.

WOMEN POWER

Recent years have had Filipina athletes leading the charge for Philippine sports. This year will not be any different.

Queen bee: Hidilyn Diaz

The undisputed queen of Philippine sports, Hidilyn Diaz-Naranjo will be stepping up in weight and in level of competition this year. The 55 kilogram division which she previously dominated with gold-medal finishes in the 2022 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 IWF World Championships will not be included in the 2024 Paris Olympics, forcing Diaz to move up to 59kg. 

A qualifying run to the Paris Olympics could set herself up to a glorious windup to an illustrious career where she has crowned herself as one of the greatest athletes in the history of Philippine sports.

Diaz-Naranjo’s readiness for the 59kg category will be tested in the 2023 Asian Weightlifting Championships scheduled this May in Jinju, South Korea.  All three medalists of the Tokyo Olympics in the division are Asians – Chinese Taipei’s Kuo Hsing-Chun (gold), Turkmenistan’s Polina Guryeva (silver), and Japan’s Mikiko Ando (bronze).

Diaz-Naranjo will most likely face them not only in the Asian Championships but also in the Asian Games. 

Southern falcon: Junna Tsukii

Junna Tsukii has already established herself as the most accomplished karateka ever from the Philippines. The gold medal winner in the 2022 World Games, Tsukii is ranked fifth in the world in the women’s kumite -50kg category. She reached a peak of third early this year, the highest world ranking achieved by a Filipino karateka. 

Current world No. 1 Yorgelis Salazar of Venezuela lost to Tsukii in the finals of the World Games. 

Tsukii – whose name means southern falcon – aims to further climb the world rankings this year, even as she was unsuccessful in her first major event in 2023 in the Karate 1-Premier League in Cairo, Egypt. 

The Asian Games will be another testing ground where Tsukii could make history. No Filipino karateka has ever won gold in the Asian Games. Tsukii was a bronze medalist in 2018. 

The highest achievement for a Filipino was a silver earned by Marne Pabillore in the women’s kumite -53kg category in 2006. 

Teen titan: Alex Eala

Alex Eala will seek to climb the ladder of her professional career and make an appearance in Grand Slam events this year.

The 17-year-old Eala, currently 217th in the world, needs to crack at least the top 100 to earn regular spots in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments.

A strong showing in the first quarter of this year could see the first Filipino junior Grand Slam singles champion possibly improve her rankings to the top 200.

A title win or two in W60 events would put Eala in a position to gain berths in the qualifiers of the three remaining Grand Slam events for the year. The last time a Filipino made the main draw of a Grand Slam was in 2022 when Cecil Mamiit lost in the opening round of the Wimbledon men’s singles. 

High hoops: Jack Animam

The first Filipino basketball player to make it to the big league might actually be a Filipina. 

Jack Animam was on the radar of WNBA scouts when she was slaying it in the First Women’s Basketball League of Serbia until an injury cut short her season. 

Ranged against bigger, taller competition in a country that is ranked eighth in the world in women’s basketball, Animam led the league in rebounds and blocks with averages of 14.3 boards and 1.9 swats, She was also one of the leading scorers, norming 20 points a game. 

Animam is now back in Europe with the Toulouse Metropole in the Ligue Feminine de Basketball in France. Even when she was sidelined by injury, she still received interest from clubs in Spain, Italy, Germany, and Australia. 

If the 6-foot-3 Animam can get back to the form she displayed in Serbia and put up impressive numbers in France, it will be a good gauge to see how far, or near, she is from her dream of making it to the WNBA.

WORLD-BEATERS

The Philippines has produced athletes who have shown they could be competitive not only in the region but even on the world stage. 

Cue masters Rubilen Amit, Carlos Biado, and Johann Chua, who last year emerged the Predator World Teams Champions, along with familiar names such as Roland Garcia, Lee Van Corteza, Roberto Gomez, Dennis Orcollo, and Chezka Centeno, remain among the best pool players in the world. 

Not much attention has been given to the sport in recent years, except when Filipinos win major events. That should serve as motivation for our top cue players to excel internationally this year.

The Philippines ended 2022 without a world champion in boxing and mixed martial arts. This is unthinkable for a country that has produced the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Gerry Peñalosa, and Nonito Donaire in boxing and had multiple world title holders in ONE Championship at the same time. 

Melvin Jerusalem gave Philippine boxing a shot in the arm just this January when he scored a technical knockout victory over Masataka Taniguchi in the second round to become the WBO world minimumweight champion. 

This augurs well for Filipinos in boxing and in contact sports and should signal a year where Filipino prizefighters regain their rightful place among the world’s elite. 

Two names, meanwhile, are often top of mind when discussing world-caliber athletes, and great things are expected from them both in 2023. 

Carlos Yulo is on a mission to produce multiple medals in the Paris Olympics. His journey towards that goal will be shaped by how much he will be able to sustain his world-class form in 2023. 

Yulo needs a big year to make up for his performance in last year’s world championships where, although he won silver in vault and bronze in parallel bars, he failed to bring home a gold for the first time in the last three editions of the competition.

EJ Obiena got off to a solid start in 2023 with already a handful of podium finishes in the indoor season.

At third in the world rankings in pole vault, Obiena has reached heights, literally and figuratively, that other Filipinos in athletics have not scaled. 

Obiena’s bronze finish in the 2022 World Athletic Championships was his announcement to the rest of the field that he is hands down the best in Asia and one of the best in the world. 

This year offers Obiena the chance to cement his place in the exclusive echelon of greatness and possibly narrow the gap that undisputed world No. 1 Armand Duplantis of Sweden has created between himself and the rest of the field. 

RISING REGION

The Philippines is coming off one of its best showings in the 2018 Asian Games where the Philippines finished with four golds, two silvers, and 15 bronzes for a total of 21 medals. This was the most number of gold medals won by the Philippines since 2006 and the most number of total medals won since 2002 when the country brought home 26. 

In the SEA Games held in Hanoi in 2022, however, the Philippines ended up at fourth place with just 52 gold medals, 70 silvers, and 105 bronzes for a total haul of 227. This was a big drop from the 2019 edition, which the country hosted, as the Philippines ran away with the overall championship with a total of 387 medals broken down into 149 golds, 117 silvers, and 121 bronzes. 

The goal for the Asian Games should not only be to surpass the gold medal tally of 2018, but also bring home the most medals in two decades. 

It would be too much to ask, though, for the overall championship in the SEA Games especially since the results of the competition often are influenced by the host country’s discretionary authority to insert events that would pad their medal collection. 

But it would not be unreasonable to expect the Philippines to better their medal showing from last year but also to place in the top three in the overall standings. – Rappler.com