The Agony of Defeat

“The depth of the field is too much for our athletes. But there’s nothing to be ashamed off. They did their best.” 
- Olympics chief of mission Manny Lopez, commenting on the Philippines' performance so far at the London Olympics (from Inquirer news: "Down to 5 as archer Javier falls" August 3, 2012.http://www.inquirer.net)


Apart from the fact that I hope for god's sake it is the correspondent and not the chief of mission who misspelled "off" in the second sentence, this is yet another reflection on the sad state of Philippine athletics. I'm not saying anything but isn't this what you expect when we have sports programs run by bureaucrats who seem to prioritize attendance over performance. 


I guess the only thing that gets my underwear in a twist is that matter-of-fact quote that "there's nothing to be ashamed of." Really? We had to go to the London Games to realize that? Aren't we supposed to know that 4 years ago in Beijing and done something about it?


But there is really nothing to be ashamed of because it's true. We've been under-funding, under-training  our athletes and given more importance to turf wars and mission statements rather than concentrating on getting our people better as the competition gets better. 


It's not the athletes' fault that the depth is too much. 


But hey, like their leaders would say: they did their best. And they got to go to London with them.

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