Kindred spirits

It is one of my favorite and most enduring stories in sports: a generation of incredible champions inspiring the next. Because truly, where would a world-class athlete find someone who can relate to the unique experiences that they have? Who else has gone through what they’ve gone through? And it gets even sweeter when the one who has gone before becomes a close friend of the one who comes after. This is the story of friendship between Akiko Thomson-Guevara and Jasmine Alkhaldi.

When Alkhaldi was eight years old, she first learned about the Olympic Games, she dreamt of being there as a swimmer, as children do. Thomson-Guevara, then already a three-time Olympian (1988, 1992 and 1996) and the second-youngest Olympian in Philippine sports history, was pointed out to her. All Jasmine could say was “Wow!” And it gets better.

 “This, I really remember. When I was 11 years old, my first international competition representing the Philippines was in Japan,” Alkhaldi said in an online interview with The STAR and PTV Sports from Hong Kong. “I remember in my main event, I was disqualified. She talked to me about that, how that’s part of being an athlete. You know, what’s important is what you do after it. Of course, for an 11-year-old, I could never forget that moment (being disqualified). But she helped turn it into a learning experience. Then we went to Disneyland after!”

Through the years, as a retired Akiko went on to continue serving sports as member and now head of the Philippine Olympians Association and later also Special Olympics Pilipinas, she kept in touch with Jasmine, constantly checking on her as a person and as an athlete. Alkhaldi has always cherished the various evolving lessons she has learned through her deepening friendship with someone she has always looked up to.

“In every season, she has some advice,” shares Alkhaldi, now a two-time Olympian herself (2012 and 2016). “Her most recent advice, which I think is most applicable to me now, is to be kinder to myself. We are similar. For her before, when she was still in it, she knows as an athlete how you can really be hard on yourself. Especially now that I’m one of the older athletes, that’s one of the