Month: August 2019

FIBA World Cup

Like the Olympics, the FIBA Basketball World Cup is held every four years. This Saturday (Aug. 31), the 16-day tournament begins in eight cities around China.

A total of 32 countries will contest this event which started in Argentina in 1950. The qualified nations include 7 from the Americas, 5 from Africa, 12 from Europe, and 8 from Asia and Oceania, including our Philippines.

The FIBA World Cup is important to our nation not only because we’re participating but because we’ll be co-hosting in 2023. Together with Indonesia and Japan, the 19th edition will come to our shores in four venues: Philippine Arena, MOA Arena, Philsports Arena, and Araneta Coliseum. (Had Cebu started construction of the SM Seaside Arena a few years ago, we’d be one of the hosts. Sayang!)

For China 2019, this is the first time that the world’s most populous nation is hosting. There will be 92 games played and this event also serves as a qualifying tournament for the 2020 Tokyo Games, with seven nations gaining direct entry to next year’s Olympics.

With our own Gilas Pilipinas, who will be flying to China today, it’s our second straight trip to the World Cup (last time was in Spain). We are in Group D together with Serbia, Italy and Angola and we’re playing in the city of Foshan in Guangdong. The format is round-robin and the top two teams of each group will advance.

This Saturday when the FIBA World Cup commences, we play our first game against Italy. Game time is 7:30 p.m. (Phil. time) and Pres. Rodrigo Duterte is expected to watch.

“We feel that’s our most important game – the Italy game,” said Gilas head coach Yeng Guiao. “So all our resources in terms of scouting, in terms of time has been focused on that.”

To qualify for Round 2 — given that Serbia will be too difficult for us — Gilas needs to beat Italy, who’ll be led by Marco Belinelli, Danilo Gallinari and Luigi Datome.

USA. The biggest sporting news erupted last week when Team USA lost to Australia, 98-94. Although it was non-bearing, nobody wants to lose, and the Americans had not lost an official or exhibition game (involving NBA players) since Sept. 2006.

How dominant are (or were) the Americans in basketball? In the 2014 FIBA World Cup, they won their nine games by an average margin of 33 points. Of course, that squad included Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis.

This 2019, Team USA has.. Myles Turner, Joe Harris, and Derrick White. Who? This is obviously the most star-lacking US team in recent history.

Which will make China 2019 exciting and competitive. There’s Nikola Jokic of Serbia (whom the Philippines will be facing on Sept. 2). There are the Antetokounmpo brothers Giannis and Thanasis of Greece. Marc Gasol and Ricky Rubio are representing Spain. More than 50 NBA players are competing.

“We’ve learned,” said the USA’s Donovan Mitchell, “that this is going to be a dogfight.”

Let the China games begin.

Roger, Rafa and Novak

Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are their family names and no triumvirate in all of sports has been as dominant.

How commanding has been the Big Three’s supremacy?

Since the 2003 Wimbledon Championships, the trio has triumphed in 53 of the 64 majors. That’s a success rate of 83 percent. And aren’t there hundreds of millions of tennis players worldwide? All of whom can do the same: smash a forehand and slice a backhand? And only three have snatched almost every Grand Slam trophy in the past 16 years? Yes, yes, yes.

If we include Stan Wawrinka and Andy Murray (who’ve both won three majors apiece), they have won 57 of the last 60 majors. And other than those five names, only three others (Marin Cilic, Gaston Gaudio and Juan Martin del Potro) have won a major title in the past 15 years.

“Rafa takes care of the clay there. Novak is in every Masters 1000 on hard court. I float around,” said Roger Federer in an interview last month. “You add Murray to it, Stan to it, guys that made their move later on, del Potro to it, you realise there’s not that much to get.”

Roger’s right. Whatever happened to Zverev, Thiem, Nishikori, Raonic, Kyrgios and the dozens of other Next-Gen players who were promoted to replace the oldies?

For the Big 3, their reign may be termed by various words: Dominance. Longevity. Excellence. Roger, 38 years old, Rafa (33) and Novak (32) are three of the greatest ever athletes who’ve wielded a tennis racket.

Federer owns 20 majors. Nadal has 18. Djokovic lurks with 16.

Which brings us to the Grand Slam event to be played in New York City starting tomorrow and for the next two weeks: the US Open.

I hope Roger collects his sixth crown in NYC. Given how he lost Wimbledon (by squandering those two match points to Novak), it would be a fitting redemption for him to win. But this may be unlikely. Because…

Rafa Nadal has the momentum. He won the last major (Roland Garros) and the Montreal Masters 1000 two weeks ago. He’s favored to add a fourth trophy to add to his wins in 2010, 2013 and 2017.

But among the three, it’s the Serbian world number one who’s the likeliest winner. The defending champ, the 32-year-old Djokovic has won four of the last five majors. And on hard-courts, it’s hard to bet against the man who’s accumulated over $135 million in prize money.

My choice? None of the above. I hope a Stefanos Tsitsipas or Daniil Medvedev or Karen Khachanov wins the US Open. As the saying goes: Give chance to others..

 

Alex Honnold

There’s a documentary that you ought to watch. It’s terrifying. It will make your palms sweat. It’s a true story horror film that’s impossible to fathom. It’s death-defying.

Free Solo is the title of the 1-hour, 40-minute film (by National Geographic) and it’s a story of how one man escaped death by climbing one of the planet’s most incredible of rock formations: El Capitan.

Alex Honnold is the real-life actor and climber of this incredible film that won the “Best Documentary Feature” in the recent 91st Academy Awards.

The 34-year-old Honnold did not just climb the 3,000-foot rock formation nicknamed “El Cap,” he climbed it from base to summit without the use of any rope. Yes, climbing the granite mountain with his bare hands.

One slip, one false grip, one momentary lapse of judgement and he could have easily fallen.

But Alex Honnold survived. And the documentary Free Solo was made to record his preparation, anxieties, injuries (leading to the climb) and his actual nerve-wracking climb.

My best friends Dr. Ronald Eullaran and James Co, together with Raycia and Jewel and their children, visited the Yosemite National Park a couple of months ago. When I asked about El Capitan, they were in awe talking about the 90-degrees-steep, all-granite, 914-meter-tall rock monolith.

Rock climbing is a popular sport around the world. There’s indoor wall-climbing (Metro Sports Center, among others, has a facility). There’s outdoor adventure climbing. Here in Cebu, there are a good number of rock climbers who love the thrill of walking vertically. I’ve read about Cantabaco in Toledo City.

Which brings me back to “Free Solo.” The risk of slipping and falling in a near-vertical climb is extremely high. And safety is the number one goal of every rock climber.

Not Alex Honnold. Never mind if he was repeatedly told that he could die, he trained his mind and body to be positive and to perfect the El Capital climb.

So here’s the good and the bad of the documentary. It’s a film that’s extremely good and thrilling (scoring a 97% rating in the Rotten Tomatoes scorecard). The bad part? People will be inspired to follow Alex Honnold and climb “free solo.”

Richard Lawson, a writer for Vanity Fair, said in his review of the film: “I left the theater invigorated and rattled, in awe of this charismatic man’s accomplishment but scared that it will inspire others to attempt the same…”

My advice? Watch the documentary. But don’t ever, ever attempt to climb without that rope, harness, helmet and safety gear.

2019 SEA Games

Exactly 104 days remain before the Philippines hosts the 2019 Southeast Asian Games. Held every two years with 11 nations participating, the last time our country hosted was in 2005. This will be the fourth time we’ll host the SEA Games, having also welcomed the athletes in 1981 and 1991.

From November 30 (when the Opening Ceremony kicks off in the Philippine Arena) until the flame gets extinguished in the Closing Ceremony in the brand-new Athletic Stadium in Clark on December 11, over 9,000 athletes will compete in the 12-day meet.

Cebu? Ha-ha. We’re far from any action. Twelve years ago when the SEAG was held in our archipelago, Cebu hosted three events: dancesport (Waterfront Lahug), sepak takraw (USC gym) and penchak silat (Cebu Coliseum). This 2019, we’re hosting zero events.

Luzon gets the honor to host all the 530 events from 56 sports. The three main hubs are in Metro Manila, in Subic and in Clark.

At the center of the games is the New Clark City Sports Hub, located in Tarlac. This is the spot where the 20,000-seater Athletics Stadium is found.

Nearby is the 2,000-seater Aquatics Center, a world-class facility complete with a 10-lane Olympic-standard pool and an 8-lane training pool. Billions of pesos (news reports have said between P3 to P6 billion) have been poured into funding this new sports complex. Lucky for Clark.

Metro Manila gets to host majority of the more popular events like basketball (Mall of Asia Arena), volleyball (Ninoy Aquino Stadium), badminton (Makati) and boxing (PICC). The Rizal Memorial Sports Complex has been furiously undergoing renovations; it will host tennis, squash, football, taekwondo and weightlifting.

The SEAG has an approved budget of P7.5 billion.

Here’s an intriguing game: Obstacle course. Yes, the game that’s often played in family gatherings or team-building exercises is one of the unique events offered this December. And for those familiar with UP Diliman, the six events under the Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) sport will be held at the Sunken Garden! How exciting is that.

Esports is making its debut at the SEA Games. I’m no gamer but the six titles to be played are “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang,”  “Arena of Valor,” “DoTA 2,” “Hearthstone,” “StarCraft II,” and “Tekken 7.” The venue will be inside the FilOil Flying V Sports Arena in San Juan.

With 530 events coming from 56 sports, the 2019 SEA Games will be a sports fanatics dream-come-true spectacle. And, for sure, there will be several athletes from the nearly 10,000 competitors who’ll see action at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics next year.

How will the host Philippines do overall? The goal is lofty. To aim is to win that No. 1 spot — the same spot we achieved back in 2005 when we won the overall trophy.

The problem is, not until last week when the PSC and POC and the other sports bodies finally got together and got united, it was all squabbling and “sports politics” among our leaders. Our hope is that all this fighting will not hamper our hosting preparations and will not dampen the motivation of our athletes.

Go, Pilipinas.