9 Filipino Sports Heroes and the 1954 Philippine Basketball Team Enshrined to Hall Of Fame

Nine Filipino outstanding sportsmen with remarkable feats and a formidable team made the Philippines proud, will be inducted to the first ever Philippine Sports Commission PSC Hall of Fame last May 5, 2010 at the Maynilad Hall of the Manila Hotel, Manila, Philippines

Late boxing greats such as Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Francisco “Pancho” Guilledo, Ceferino Garcia, and the father and son tandem of Jose “Cely” Villanueva, Anthony Villanueva, track and fields stalwarts Miguel White and Simeon Torribio, swimmer Teofilo Yldefonso, and the basketball quintet led by Carlos “Caloy” Loyzaga, that took home the bronze medal that glitters like gold in the 1954 World Basketball Championships made up the illustrious first batch of PSC Hall of Famers.

Elorde reigned as WBC super featherweight Champion for seven years from 1960 to 1967, while Guilledo was the world flyweight champion from 1923 to 1925. Garcia on the other hand was the world middleweight champion from October 1929 to May 1940.

Yldefonso, the first Filipino medalist in the Summer Olympics salvaged a bronze medal in the 200 m breaststroke in the 1928 Amsterdam Games. He duplicated his feat when he took another bronze medal in the same event at the Los Angeles Games, four years later.

The Los Angeles Olympic Games also produced another great Filipino athlete in Torribio who collared the bronze medal in the men’s long jump and boxer, Jose “Cely” Villanueva, who annexed the bronze medal in the bantamweight division.

In 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, athletics stalwart White brought home the bronze in the men’s 400-m hurdles.

Villanueva’s son Anthony made a breakthrough as he took the country’s first ever silver medal in the games, as he wound up second in the men’s featherweight in boxing in the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Taking the cudgel for the RP team, Loyzaga steered the vaunted Philippine basketball squad to a respectable bronze medal triumph in the 1954 World Basketball Championship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Philippines’ lofty finish here is still the highest placing for any Asian country in the World Championships.

Two thumbs for making the Filipinos spirits high!