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A little-known 6-1 Iranian guard came out of nowhere to nearly beat Gilas singlehandedly in the quarterfinals of men’s basketball at the Hangzhou Asian Games the other day. Mohammad Sina Vahedi, 22, was never considered a star on the Iranian national squad and in the domestic league, earned a dubious reputation as a nomad switching from team to team over the last five years.
In 2014, a smart guy brought in nine Bosnia-Herzegovina and several Senegalese teenagers to Doha to line them up for the national basketball team, avoiding classification as naturalized because they were issued Qatari passports before turning 16. The gamble was the “kids” would mature to become the next Bojan Bogdanovic or Gorgui Dieng. Transporting teeners from home to a foreign country was easy because all it took was money. But transforming them into basketball stars was a risky proposition.
It’s not often that athletes like Manny Pacquiao, Hidilyn Diaz, Caloy Yulo and EJ Obiena emerge in the same lifetime. In their sport, they’re one in a zillion. There will never be another Pacquiao who’s in the record books as the only boxer to win world titles in eight different weight divisions. There will never be another Diaz who was No. 11 in the women’s 58kg weightlifting class at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, crashed out without a score in clean and jerk in the same weight category at the 2012 London Olympics, dropped to 53kg to snatch the silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics then settled at 55kg to strike paydirt at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. There will never be another Yulo who at 19, won the gold in floor exercise at the World Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart in 2019 and at 21, bagged the gold in vault at the World Gymnastics Championships in Kitakyushu in 2021. Who would’ve imagined that a 4-11 kid could mesmerize the world in gymnastics?
It’s all systems go as EASL’s first home-and-away season reels off on Oct. 11 with PBA Governors Cup champion TNT taking on the Chiba Jets at the Funabashi Arena, less than an hour’s drive from Tokyo. The other PBA team playing in EASL is Meralco with the Bolts making their debut against B-League champion Ryukyu Golden Kings in Okinawa on Nov. 11.
There were at least 16 naturalized players listed in rosters at the recent FIBA World Cup with Gilas’ Jordan Clarkson and China’s Kyle Anderson among the few exceptions as “imports” with blood lineage to the countries they represented. In FIFA, a player may be enlisted by a country where he or she wasn’t born for as long as a biological connection is traceable down to a grandparent/parent or a five-year residence is established from the age of 18. In FIBA, a foreign-born player may be enlisted without a biological connection and is eligible as soon as he or she is issued a passport but only one is allowed per team. Exceptions are foreign-born players who are issued a passport before turning 16 and foreign-born players with a relatively long history of residence, with or without a biological connection.
It could be the most problematic Gilas team ever but no matter the odds, coach Tim Cone is armed for battle with a band of brothers determined to fight ‘til the final buzzer of every contest at the Hangzhou Asian Games. The campaign began yesterday with Gilas taking on Bahrain. Then, the Philippines battles Thailand tomorrow and Jordan on Saturday. If Gilas winds up on top of Group C at the end of the round-robin preliminaries, it automatically qualifies for the quarterfinals to begin on Oct. 3. In that scenario, Gilas will play the winner of a knockout between Group A’s No. 2 (possibly, Kazakhstan) and Group B’s No. 3 (possibly, Hong Kong). If the Philippines advances to the semifinals, it could be a showdown with host China, expected to sweep Group B. In the final, Group A’s Iran or Group D’s South Korea could make it to clash with either Gilas or China.
Taking off from last Sunday’s column on the confusing lack of uniformity in weight divisions for boxing at the SEA Games, Asian Games and Olympic levels, let’s now look at a similar chaotic situation in weightlifting, the only sport that has delivered an Olympic gold medal for the Philippines.
It’s every athlete’s dream to scale the heights, one level at a time. For the Filipino national athlete, the pursuit of excellence on the international stage usually starts at the SEA Games then Asian Games and culminates at the Olympics. Aside from the World Championships, those are the three major competitions where athletes aspire to land a podium finish as incentives await the medalists by law.