A lesson for rejecting Yulo as the greatest of all time

By Alex P. Vidal

“I love the Olympic Games. The Olympics are an event that few can fathom but all can enjoy, and that’s why athletes work our whole lives to put on the greatest show on Earth.”— Johnny Weir

UNLESS some Filipinos will understand and learn to truly appreciate what World Olympic Games is all about and why humanity celebrates and pays a colossal homage to it, they will never believe that Carlos Yulo’s two-gold haul in the 2024 Paris Olympics or Paris Olympic Games male artistic gymnastics is the highest-ever achievement by any Filipino athlete dead or living, past or contemporary.

They continue to equate Yulo’s breathtaking gold collections with the achievements of other great Filipino athletes who neither took part nor won a medal in the World Olympic Games.

It’s sad and alarming that in the social media, pre-dated by the greatest show or Games on earth by 2,700 years, absolute facts about Yulo’s exploits and how dominant his triumphant gold harvest should be, is being undermined by relativist or subjectivist fallacies.

Pseudo sports experts gatecrash in the murky platform and turn obnoxious and cantankerous while contradicting solid and irrefutable facts.

Thus, it is still ideal to educate and inculcate to the people directly in the university classrooms—where the environment and views of participants are somehow liberal and free from provincialism and dogma—about the significance and how divergent and valuable is the World Olympic Games compared to other “world” and “international” Games (group and individual); and why it’s in the higher level and beyond comparison.

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Based on history, splendor and tradition, a gold medal won in the World Olympic Games can never and should not be equated with any title recorded in other sports conclaves by any team or individual athlete.

The standards in the modern Olympic Games are towering and too extortionate to be matched with the championships in individual or team races outside the scopes of the Games that prides itself with the motto of “Citius, Altius, Fortius” or Faster, Higher, Stronger.

We celebrate the Olympics diversity and inclusion on a global scale where more than 10,000 athletes from around the world connect for athletic competition, irrespective of social background, gender, race, sexual orientation or political belief.

“World Cups” or “World Championships” and “Intercontinental Games” are like rosary prayers in the Roman Catholic. They can’t match the single World Olympic Games, which is equivalent to a full requiem celebrated Mass.

A “World Cup” doesn’t happen only in soccer; there are “World Cups” in chess, boxing, softball, billiards, athletics, basketball, equestrian, golf, etcetera. World Cup champions can never match the World Olympic Games champions (gold medalists like Simone Biles, Carlos Yulo, among other heroes and heroines in Paris).

A grand slam achievement in tennis can never be compared to an Olympic Games gold medal. Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, a many-time champion in the French Open, US Open, Australian Open, and Wimbledon considered the Paris Olympic gold he won over Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz as “the biggest sporting success” he’s achieved and “most special feeling. God is with me. God gave me this. And I am grateful.”

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Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), whose light heavyweight gold in the 1960 Rome Olympics ranked higher than his professional world heavyweight titles, exploded: “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I was really the greatest.”

The Americans place Jesse Owens’ and Michael Phelps’ Olympic Games achievements over the commercial successes of Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, among other US professional athletes.

Manny Pacquiao, a former best boxer in the world pound-for-pound, wanted to join the 2024 Paris Olympics in his retirement age, because he wanted to fill the shoes of an Olympic gold medalist which were taken by Carlos Yulo, who won not only one but two golds.

I mentioned in my previous article that Yulo’s achievements tower above all achievements by other Filipino sports treasures. It took a century before weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz won the Philippines’ first gold in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (held in 2021 because of pandemic). An Olympic gold has been slippery for Filipinos, and Yulo grabbed two in Paris. No other Filipino athlete or Olympian for that matter can match Yulo’s amazing two-gold feat, at least in the modern times.

These are solid facts based on empirical evidence and are independent of human feelings or thoughts.

There’s a saying that those who believe, no explanation is needed. Those who don’t believe, no explanation is necessary. And those who refuse to believe, no explanation is possible.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)