Philippine Sports News and Updates

In a country deprived of Olympic joy when athletes from the regular sports failed in their courageous bid to land a medal, 24-year-old Willy Wang arrived Monday giving people who saw him at the airport reason to celebrate.

“I am happy because we got a gold in the Olympics,” said Wang, who prepared just as hard—and as long—as the athletes who were counted on to deliver the country’s first Olympic gold medal.

Wang, who prepared for the event for eight months, won the gold in wushu, a demonstration event whose results do not count on the official medal standings.

“Even if it’s a special event, I am happy that we won a gold,” said the Filipino-Chinese world champion in heavily accented Filipino.

Wang, who started training in the martial art when he was 12, snagged the gold in the demonstration event held on the side of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where most of the country’s overmatched delegation failed to make it even past the preliminary stages of their events.

Wang’s victory marked the only time the Philippine national anthem was played in Olympic City.

Wang shared that other Filipino athletes in Beijing were happy about his win despite missing their own medal goals in the quadrennial.

“Their training was really hard, they did all the preparation and they did not get any medals, but at least I got one for the country. My friends [from other events] are happy about it,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer while waiting at the baggage carousel at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2.

He believes wushu has a strong chance to become an Olympic event soon, but not within the slowly expiring shelf life of his career.

“By the next Olympics, I might already have retired, because that’s still a long time away, four years,” Wang said. “Maybe [I’m retiring] next year, because I’m old [for the sport], I’m already 24.

“I’d like to do business instead, maybe [with] computers,” he said with a grin.

Wang arrived on a Philippine Airlines flight around 5:40 p.m. Monday along with officials of the Philippine delegation, among them Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco and the team’s chief of mission, Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella.

Said Cojuangco of Wang’s sport: “I think it has a good prospect because the Chinese are really working hard to get it in, there’s a big effort to get it in.”

Asked about the Philippine team’s performance, he said: “They performed as best as they can. They broke their own Philippine records. They did the way we expected them to do, only the competition was really tough.”