PHILIPPINE sports in 2008 had the mold of one fearless, peppery and charismatic 29-year-old from General Santos City?Manny Pacquiao.
The rest?
Jennifer Rosales and Dorothy Delasin kicked off 2008 with a promise on the greens of Gary Player Country Club in Sun City, South Africa, in January after they won the Women?s World Cup of Golf.
Nonito Donaire Jr. and Gerry Pe?alosa did theirs also atop the squared circle, but they had to lurk in the shadow that is now a global superstar, Pacquiao?s.
The Olympic campaign was forgettable. Fifteen Filipinos?some half-Filipinos or those who look like one but actually were either bred of raised overseas?were smothered by the opposition in Beijing in August.
Wesley So was a shining chess piece, what with his exploits specifically in the Dubai Open that made him the toast, the youngest at that, of Philippine chess.
So how was Philippine sports again in 2008?
It was amazing in one field?professional boxing?thanks mainly to Pacquiao who capped his illustrious 2008 campaign with a convincing ninth-round technical knockout win over the Golden Boy, the Filipino ring icon?s idol, Oscar de la Hoya.
De la Hoya was beaten black and blue and was almost sapped to a pulp had his corner decided for him to go on in their Dream Match in Las Vegas.
?You?re still my idol,? Pacquiao told de la Hoya after the one-sided fight that certified further the Filipino?s status as a boxing billionaire.
Before de la Hoya, Pacquiao beat by a hair Juan Manuel Marquez to snatch the World Boxing Council (WBC) super-featherweight title, one of four he has held, in March.
He came back three months later to David Diaz also in the ninth, for the WBC lightweight title.
It took several negotiations, and guessing game, before the Dream Match finally took place. And when it did, Pacquiao earned the title as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.
After a one-year hiatus and a fallout with his promoter Gary Shaw, Donaire returned to the ring to defeat Moruti Mthalane of South Africa via technical knockout in the sixth round in November in Las Vegas to keep his International Boxing Federation and International Boxing Organization (IBO) flyweight crowns.
Pe?alosa, on the other hand, dominated mandatory challenger Thai Ratanachai Sor Vorapin in April at the Araneta Coliseum to retain his World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight title via an eighth-round knockout.
At the start of the year, Rosales and Delasin, surprised the golfing world by capturing the fourth Women?s World Cup of Gold Championship.
The duo birdied the last four holes to finish with a seven-under 65 for a three-day total of 200 that beat the celebrated duo of Shin Ji-Yai and Ji Eun-Hee of South Korea, ranked No. 7 and No. 28 in the world at that time, by two shots.
At a tender age of 14, So became the country?s seventh grandmaster (GM) in 2007. And in 2008, he proved he was no fluke.
So had a superb summer with his conquest of the 10th Dubai Open in April, the youngest to win the event. Here at home, So bested other Filipino GMs to wrest the Battle of the GMs in May.
In between those tournaments, he went to Jakarta for a one-on-one Fide (International Chess Federation) rated match with GM Susanto Megaranto and won, 4-2.
Beijing 2008 went down as the best and the grandest and well-organized Olympics. The Chinese put their best foot forward, gave the visitors a Games they will always remember but one that Filipinos would rather forget.
No Filipino athlete could get past the first day of their respective events, not even in boxing and taekwondo, two sports where Philippine sports officials have been drumming up as the most logical source of that first Olympic gold medal.
Harry Ta?amor was the only boxing bet in Beijing, but at 30, he was past his prime and could not get past a Ghanian in his first assignment. That solicited calls for a massive overhaul of the country?s boxing program?and it materialized, showing into the picture men not originally of boxing, but of basketball and of the business community.
Tshomlee Go and Mary Antoinette Rivero, like Ta?amor, were touted as hopes for the gold medal. And when fight day in Beijing came, they stood their ground, literally, that is, as they looked to have weight on their legs and let their opponents do the kicking as they simply stood there.
Archer Mark Javier, swimmers Miguel Molina, Ryan Arabejo, JB Walsh, Daniel Coakley and Christel Simms, divers Shiela Mae Perez and Rexel Ryan Fabriga, weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, shooter Eric Ang, long jumpers Henry Dagmil and Marestella Torres were the other Filipinos whose memories from Beijing would be an Olympic ring in one of their fingers.
Jose ?Peping? Cojuangco, the former congressman and governor of Tarlac, clinched another four-year term as Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president, beating President Arroyo?s half-brother Art Macapagal in what could go down as the most tension-filled POC election in history.
Cojuangco won by a mere two votes, 21-19, a number many say does not augur well for a POC leadership which is surrounded and hounded by pretenders and self-proclaimed messiahs in most of the 39 national sports associations.
So how did Philippine sports really go in 2008?
Make it Manny, as in Pacquiao.
