I was named after a tennis player but I was never much of an athlete.
I dabbled at badminton and volleyball during my elementary years but it was clear that while I love sports, the feeling was not mutual. I remained a sports fan though. I preferred watching the PBA (Philippine Basketball Association) league over the teleseryes (soap operas). I was a solid San Miguel Beer fan. Ginebra and Alaska came in second and third on my list.
I eventually married Jeff, an Italian American who used to be a cross country runner, served as three-time Summer Olympic sportscaster (Athens, Atlanta, and Sydney), and worked as the main liaison for foreign media at the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG). He also served as the Executive Advisor for The 16th Asian Games, Guangzhou 2010, senior media manager for the AFC Cup in Doha, Qatar, and was appointed to senior roles at The 2013 Asian Youth Games and The 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China.
Check Jeff Ruffolo’s book, Inside the Beijing Olympics, on Amazon.
Here in the Philippines, where we are happily and safely located in this pandemic, Jeff wakes up at 4 a.m. every single day because I have an early riser for a husband who can’t survive the day without breakfast. From Monday to Friday, he leaves the house at 4:30 a.m. for his morning walk. He comes home between 6 to 6:30 a.m., cools down, showers, and then calls friends and family in the US. He comes down and then makes breakfast for everyone. These days, mornings in the house are all about baseball as Jeff teaches the boys about the sports and tells them stories about the (Los Angeles) Angels.
In between reading books and enjoying the newly-installed hammock, there has been so much boxing and lifting happening in the house as the kids and I have been cheering on the Filipino athletes in the Tokyo Olympics. The kids call it “claps” when the Americans and Italians (their Dad is Italian American) compete. But whenever the Filipinos are out there, they perform rounds and rounds of applause.
I cried when Hidilyn Diaz won the country’s first gold medal and I had to explain to the kids why.
“You’re not her mother,” was Antoinette’s comment.
How do you explain to an eight-year-old part-Filipino, part-Italian-American that there is so much sacrifice, passion, and determination attached to that medal?
So I showed her videos of Hidilyn in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio; Hidilyn competing in the Southeast Asian Games in 2019; and my own videos of Hidilyn back in 2017 when she visited Cebu for a weightlifting event organized by my friend and “little sister, Miss Cebu 2016 Raine Baljak.
READ: HIDILYN DIAZ: ‘Curiosity brought me to the Olympics’
READ: The promise of weightlifting
I am not sure if my daughter gets it. She might have because she and her brothers were so revved up when we watched Nesthy Petecio in action against Irma Testa of Italy. Or they are just mimicking my cheers to my fellow Filipinos. Either way, the looks on their faces every time a blow lands on Testa’s body and the victory jump they did when the Philippines was announced as winner told me that I have extra cheerleaders in this house and that’s all I care about for now.
I wished though that this virus will just go away. I wasn’t successful in flying to Tokyo for the Olympics because of flight cancellations. But here’s hoping that we can fly to Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Jeff was part of the team that wrote that winning bid. I clearly remember being on a cruise ship in 2015 pregnant with JJ when Jeff excused himself in a dinner with other couples because there was an urgent call from the Beijing team. They were up against the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan. My husband was in an Olympic mood, determined to win the bid so China can once again host another historic event.
And they did.
I once asked my husband why he is so passionate about the Olympics. He said the Olympics, although viewed by many as an extravagant event, is the perfect venue for countries to celebrate peace, friendship, and unity. “There is no better platform to celebrate these three than the Olympics,” he said.
I don’t know if it’s possible but I hope, wish, and pray that we can be in Beijing in 2022 (and Paris in 2024) to cheer on our Filipino athletes. We will cheer on the Americans and the Italians too!
