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A Filipino Athlete
If we can only paint the tale, which is Philippine sports, it will feature the struggles of every Filipino athlete to reach the heights of greatness and grab the baton of heroism. It will also show the despair of those who have failed and the glory of those who have succeeded. The colors will show the human determination and the discipline of trying to be the one who can run the fastest, jump the highest, and be the strongest. The painting will be a symbol of what the Filipino athlete have done, whether an achievement or failure, over the years. Each shade of color will stand for every Filipino athlete who, with his every victory, united even for a brief moment, a nation divided by the sea, by the beliefs and by language. And the colors will fill the landscape with brightness just like what they did when they filled the hearts of every Filipino with pride, joy and passion. The mural will be their immortality, And if we look closely at this monument to Philippine sports, one color will definitely stand out. It will be the color of one of our legends. A single shot in the dying moments of a game makes a hero, but a lifetime of brilliant victories doesn't only make a hero, it makes a legend. And in 1972, such a legend from Manila is in the making. In that year, a Filipina named Olivia "Bong" Coo caught the attention of the world by winning five out of the six gold medals at stake. The event was the biennial Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (Asian) Zone Championships, aside for the participation of our Asian bowling athletes, the event also includes athletes from Australia, New Zealand and the Continental USA. The local bowling community was ecstatic, as Bong sizzled with her Individual All Events and Masters victory, the world can only watch in admiration while a woman from a little known country in Asia breath fire over Malaysian lanes. And the fire kept on burning even beyond Malaysia. Bong won two other Asian titles, in a span of just thirty days. Her blitzkrieg to victory gave her the title "Asia's Bowling Queen." And there was no stopping from there. Bong is one of the few bowlers who bowled competitively along the evolution of bowling equipment - from the rubber era to the urethane and to the present day reactive or particle bowling balls. She has always been resilient to change one of a few athletes who are constantly changing their game to evolve with the times. In the 1978 Bangkok Asian Games, Bong made headlines once again by winning the Philippines first gold medal in the meet. Bong bowled with a 211 average in the Singles and added another gold medal in the Team event. It was an inaugural year for bowling in the Asian Games and she became the first Asian Games Masters champion. Ironically, she also topped the Individual All-Events, but the organizers scrapped the event to allocate the medal to other sports disciplines, and she had to wait for the next games to correct the mistake. Her medals in Bangkok proved that the country's Bowling team was a team to recon with in international competitions. The entire Philippine delegation went home with four gold medals, three of them courtesy of Bong making her the most bemedalled Filipino athlete in the Games in one celebration. 1979 was another banner year for our right handed lady bowler. It was a year where Bong proved that the Filipino is a world class athlete. She won the
AMF Bowling World Cup on her first
attempt in style, her three-game match play score is a World Cup finals
record. Bong Coo's victory made the Philippines the first country to win
the World Cup two years in a row. The Filipino populace's excitement over her victory has
barely subsided when she struck again. In the
quadrennial World
Championships held in Manila, Bong dazzled the crowd averaging 215
to grab the gold with Lita dela Rosa in the
Ladies Doubles event.
Bong again averaged 200 in Trios with Lita and Nellie Castillo for
the silver, but what was significant was her Individual All Events
record acknowledged in the
Guinness Book of World Records, giving
her the distinction of being the first Filipino athlete listed in
the book. But the world tourney did not award her the All-Events
medal that year, only the title, this was a transition year for the
World Championships and Bong had to wait another four years to
correct that mistake. Nonetheless, she became the first bowler to
win in two different world tournaments in a year. In the
1983 World
Championships held in Caracas Venezuela, seven bowlers surpassed the
1979 All Events record, but her 210 average in the
Trios for a
silver medal performance with Lita and Arianne Cerdena was enough to
lift her past all others for the destined Individual All Events gold medal. She
was the only Asian bowler to win a gold medal in that tourney, and
the only one to re-write a Guinness world record. There are only
seven (7) female Individual All Events champions in the quadrennial
World Championships to this day, the winners represented by six
countries from four continents – Philippines, USA, Denmark, Finland,
Australia and England. Bong Coo is its
only back-to-back Individual
All-Events Champion. In the 1986 FIQ Zone Championships, Bong combined with Arianne Cerdena to win the Doubles gold. Flashing her usual deadly form and confidence, Bong averaged 220 in the Trios to set three individual records, enough to surpass the world record for the Individual All Events gold medal and making her the only 2-time Individual All-Events women's Champion in the 34-year history of the FIQ Asian Zone championships. Bowling was not included in the 1982 Asian Games in India, and Bong had to wait another four years to reclaim her All Events title. In the 1986 Seoul Asian Games, Bong averaged 200 in the Team event to help win the Team gold medal. Her final event output broke the world record for the second time in three months in the Individual All Events for a gold medal which should have been awarded to her eight years prior. The entire Philippine delegation went home with 4 gold medals. With her two additional victories, she holds the record for having the most gold medals won by a Filipino athlete in the Asian Games with five. There are only five Individual All Events Champions in the Asian Games to this day, Bong Coo is its only back-to-back Individual All-Events Champion (Bong competed in these tournaments using her fathers name - Garcia). Setting her mind at the All Events record in the 1986 Seoul Games was specific. Having already established the All Events games records in the Philippine National Championships and the Zone Championships a few months earlier, the Southeast Asian Games and the World Championships in 1983, she has the distinction of holding the Individual All Events records in the national, regional level, Asian zone level and world level championships at one time as well as the All Events records in Biennial Games such as the South East Asian Games and the Asian Zone Championships and in Quadrennial Games such as the Asian Games and the World Championships. More importantly, she won the All Events at least twice and in consecutive games in each of those tournaments apart from the Asian Zone Championships where she repeated after 14 years. The World Bowling Writers voted her World Bowler of the year in 1986. All international competition is contested on very demanding lane condition each day, particularly the Individual All Events, which places the emphasis on players who adjust quickly and can master different lane conditions on a variety of pacing or events. The All Events is an individual competition that evolves around team play. The fact that Bong has won the Individual All Events repeatedly requires commitment, dedication and tremendous versatility. In 1992, exactly two decades after her first FIQ Zone Masters victory she again grabbed the gold, averaging 227 on the final day to come from behind, this time in Perth, Australia. The 12th FIQ Zone Masters is Bong's 14th gold medal in 12 consecutive FIQ Zone Championships, in addition to 9 silver and 7 bronze medals. No other bowling athlete in the world has competed in consecutive FIQ Zone tournaments and with as much medal haul. Her long stint in the Asian FIQ circuit made her "Asia's Most Durable Bowler". Her 1972 and 1992 Masters titles were later acknowledged by the World Bowling Writers Hall of Fame Committee equivalent to world medals. The Federation Internationale des Quilleurs voted her Woman Bowler of Year for 1992 and 1993. Because of her remarkable mastery of the sport, the World Bowling Writers Association (WBW) in 1993 gave her the distinction of becoming among the first to be inducted in the WBW International Hall Bowling of Fame in St. Louis Missouri USA, together with Paeng Nepomuceno and Sweden’s Anette Hagre. In setting and breaking records, all in all, Bong amassed 77 medals in regional and world events where she competed as a member of the national squad, (broken down to 37 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze) making her the most bemedalled Filipino athlete of all time. Bong also has a total of 107 individual championships and has won at least one Masters title for 28 consecutive years. She won her 107th title at the Hiroshima Japan Cup Amateur Masters Championships in 1997, six months short of her 50th birth anniversary. There is no denying that Bong has graduated from being a sports hero of a generation to being a legend, carving her image and form in the Filipino psyche. She is more than just an icon, and she is more than just a myth. She is a paragon of self-discipline and of sheer determination. In every war she fought, she shared her heart with the nation she grew up in, she shared her excitement and her enthusiasm, her delight in every strike and her sadness in every miss cue. Though her name reverberates in the hall of bowling, her heart is still Filipino. And that's what makes her a cut above the rest. To most of her fans, her induction to the Bowling
Hall of Fame is a deserving exclamation point to the fire that was
first felt in Malaysia. But her induction is not an exclamation
point, it is just a big comma. The saga does not end there, it only
just entered into a new phase. Bong will continue to excite and
enthrall the sports loving fans in the Philippines and in the world.
She will continue to evolve and do her best, whether she is inside a
bowling center or not, not only for herself but most especially to
the Filipino people. -
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