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Pinoy Olympic gold, Olympic demonstration sports, curling? Wooshoooo!

An Indian shooter bagged his nation's first individual Olympic gold in Beijing. I thought that India had been winning golds ever since it first competed in 1900. The Indian teams then were composed of Indo-British athletes. India has won a team gold in field hockey but this is the first time that an Indian won an individual gold.

India is a huge country with a billion people. It is surprising that for such a big nation, it has won quite a few medals.

This should give us Pinoys hope. If we try long enough, we will get that gold. I hope our Taekwondo jins, Toni Rivero and Tshomlee Go get twin golds and of course boxer Harry Tanamor gets that gold too.

Arianne Cerdena bagged our first Olympic "gold" in Bowling in Seoul 1988. Bowling wasn't in the Olympic calendar and was a demonstration sport. But a gold is a gold by any other name. I recall jumping for joy in 1988 when we saw on TV her splendid last frame. We wept when the Sun and Stars were raised and Lupang Hinirang was played.

There was talk that bowling will soon be on the calendar and someone like Paeng will give us our first real gold. But that hope faded. Bowling never became a demonstration sport once more and finally dropped out of the Olympics.

Wikipedia gives a list of all demonstration sports in the Olympics. Some sports seem fun like Ballooning in the 1900 games. But since 1992 Barcelona, the IOC has decided to drop with the sports anyway since the Olympics have become an organizational headache.

Bowlers say that if curling made it to the Winter Games, why not bowling? Since China is now a superpower and superpowers ought to have their national sports in the Olympics, Wushu should make it. We have a good chance in Wushu. We have won Wushu golds in the Asiad. However in Beijing, Wushu isn't considered even as a demonstration sport but a Wushu tournament that will be held with the Olympics.

(Baseball is the superpower USA's sport.It became an Olympic sport after 1984)

BTW Scotland was never, is not and will never be a superpower. Why did curling become an Olympic sport anyway?

And neither is Canada. Lacrosse never made it but ice hockey did!
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