TEN athletes, including legendary boxers Gabriel ?Flash? Elorde and Pancho Villa, are among the first-ever inductees into the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame.
Elorde was the World Boxing Council (WBC) super-featherweight champion from 1960 to 1967, emerging as the best Filipino boxer ever before Manny Pacquiao.
Villa, Francisco Guilledo in real life, started it all for Philippine boxing, becoming the country?s first world champion in the flyweight division in 1923. He held the title until his death in 1925 due to a tooth infection.
The induction ceremony will be held on May 5 at the Manila Hotel.
Also included on the list are professional boxer Ceferino Garcia, father-and-son amateur boxers Cely Villanueva and Anthony Villanueva, high jumper Simeon Toribio, hurdler Miguel White, swimmer Teofilo Yldefonso, cager Carlos Loyzaga, and the Philippine men?s basketball team in the 1954 World Championship.
Garcia accumulated the most wins by any Filipino professional boxer, winning 102 fights and becoming the only Filipino to win the middleweight class.
Cely Villanueva nabbed the bronze medal in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics in the bantamweight division, while his son Anthony surpassed his father?s mark by winning the silver medal in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
Toribio competed in three consecutive Olympic Games from 1928 and grabbed the bronze medal in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics before becoming a member of the House of Representatives from 1941 to 1953. White, a Filipino-American, won a bronze medal in the 1936 Berling Olympics.
Yldefonso won the country?s first-ever Olympic medal?a bronze in the breaststroke event of the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. Yldefonso, also a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame and grandfather of current RP team member Daniel Coakley, captured his second bronze medal in 1932 but was killed during the World War II after surviving the Death March.
Loyzaga is the only Filipino to be named a Mythical Five of the Fiba World Championships, getting the award in 1954 in Rio de Janeiro where he guided the squad to a third-place finish.
Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Harry Angping said the inductees were selected among 43 candidates from athletes and coaches from the 1923 to 1964 by a selection committee.
?The invitations will be sent out and we will sponsor two persons from their family in their stay in Manila,? Angping said.
