ARCHITECT OF SUCCESS: Tolentino’s Olympic blueprint keys Phl’s historic victory

Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino admitted that there were butterflies in his stomach when Team Philippines was heading for the Paris Olympics.

And why not, with the country’s very successful participation in the Tokyo Games three years ago, matching or surpassing its solitary gold medal finish will be very tough for these Filipino athletes.

After all, Tolentino was also the POC chief when Hidilyn Diaz won the country’s very first gold medal in the Olympics and doing it again is like breaking his own personal record.

But the faith of the 60-year-old POC chief never wavered.

“The challenge was how do we surpass the one gold medal in Tokyo. It was such a difficult mission that I had to go to church everyday — even by myself,” said Tolentino a few days after the country completed its most successful stint in its 100 years of Olympic participation.

Instead of crumbling under the tremendous pressure brought by the intimidating task at hand, Tolentino devised a strategy that aims to surpass the country’s previous Olympic performance.

First, he defied the tradition by appointing Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla to serve as chef de mission — a move that may not be popular to some members of the Olympic council since he is not a national sports association leader.

With Remulla’s help in securing funding, Tolentino and the POC were able to come up with a one-month training camp at La Moselle in Metz, France, giving the athletes a chance to acclimatize before facing the best athletes in the world.

“But he is also into sports. He is the team manager of UP (University of the Philippines) men’s basketball team and not everybody knew what he did there,” said Tolentino, who calls Remulla as his “secret weapon” in driving Team Philippines to success.

“He followed up the financial assistance at the Office of the President for the training camp. He even worked on giving us a chartered plane.”

Aside from Remulla, the help of the private sector was also a big boost to the campaign of Team Philippines.

“We’re also honored to have Cignal TV as our gracious partner,” Tolentino said, referring to the cable network that is under the umbrella of sports partron Manny Pangilinan.

The result was simply impressive.

With 22 fighting athletes on board, Team Philippines waged into battle that led to a historic double gold medal performance by gymnast Carlos Yulo while boxers Aira Villegas and Nesthy Petecio chipped in a pair of bronze medals to underscore the historic victory.

With two gold and two silver medals, the Philippines emerged with its best finish ever at No. 37 in the 206-nation medal tally and even surpassed Thailand and Indonesia in the Southeast Asian medal table.

Tolentino believes that their four-medal finish was just the tip of the iceberg.

“We could have gotten seven medals. In golf, we were just a stroke away while in pole vault, we were just a jump away,” said Tolentino, referring to the heartbreaking losses of golfer Bianca Pagdanganan and pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena.

“EJ already defeated those guys and he and Armand Duplantis were the only pole vaulters who made it past the six-meter mark.”

“Carlo Paalam was also one judge away. Even the officials knew that he won on points,” added Tolentino, shaking his head on the fate of Paalam, who lost his chance to advance to the semifinals to Charlie Senior of Australia in one of the tightest bouts ever in the Olympics.

But the Filipinos should not be complacent despite their historic finish.

“The work for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 starts now,” the Tagaytay City mayor said.

“The template applied to weightlifting, gymnastics, and boxing has been tested and proven effective in Paris. The POC will be encouraging national sports associations to apply a similar template.”

Looking back, the victory in Paris would not be possible if not for Tolentino’s hard work, dedication and very hands-on approach.

He carefully plotted a successful campaign and the Filipino athletes bought it in, believing that they can also stand their ground against the best in the world.

Tolentino can now rest and take it easy. The Architect of Success had done it again.