Banner campaign for Philippine boxing in Tokyo

They are not called fighters for nothing.

In the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the Philippine boxing bets fueled the country's medal haul with three of the four medals delivered by the sport.

The boxers on Saturday officially closed the competitions with two silver medals and a bronze in what has been the most medal-rich campaign of the boxing team in the country's history of participation in the Olympics.

Nesthy Petecio was the first to secure a medal finish after defeating Colombia’s Yeni Marcela Aria Castaneda in the quarterfinals. She came close to winning a gold medal but had to settle for silver after bowing to hometown bet Sena Irie of Japan in the women's featherweight final round last Tuesday.

After her, Eumir Marcial settled for bronze as he was unable to get past Oleksandr Khyzhniak of Ukraine in a brutal semifinal clash in the men’s middleweight division last Thursday.

It was saw the end of a promising campaign for Marcial, who did not even need to get out of the first round in his first two fights after a referee stoppage and a knockout in the Round of 16 and quarters.

Putting the icing on the cake, meanwhile, was Carlo Paalam.

The 23-year-old pug put up a gallant stand but ultimately fell to Galal Yafai of Great Britain to settle for a silver in the men’s flyweight finals. With his result, he matched the best result by any Filipno boxer in the Summer Games.

The fourth member of the team, Irish Magno, was not able to bag any medal, but she put up a fight in her short stint. The 30-year-old boxer fell prey to Jutamas Jitpong of Thailand in the Round of 16 to formally seal her Tokyo campaign.

Boxing, of course, holds a special place in the Philippines’ Olympic history.

Before this year, the country had only ever won a total of 10 medals. And out of those 10, half of those have come in the boxing ring.

Jose Villanueva won the country’s first boxing medal in the 1932 Games in Los Angeles as he took a bronze. His son, Anthony Villanueva, also a boxer, won the country’s first-ever silver medal in Tokyo in 1964.

In the 80s and 90s, there was a stretch of three straight Olympics where pugilists delivered medals for the Philippines. Leopoldo Serantes won a bronze in Seoul in 1988, Roel Velasco took home a bronze from Barcelona in 1992, and his brother Manueto ‘Onyok’ Velasco picked up the country’s second-ever silver medal in Atlanta in 1996.

Between Miguel White’s bronze medal in athletics in 1936 and Hidilyn Diaz’s silver in weightlifting in 2016, a stretch of 80 years, the only medals Filipinos won were in boxing.

That puts into context how special this Tokyo 2020 class actually is.

In one campaign, they delivered two silver medals – when boxing had only ever delivered two in the country’s history of participation in the Olympics.

They also won multiple medals in a single Olympic boxing campaign for the first time. And they produced the first-ever Filipina boxing medalist in Petecio.

This strong showing, according to Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) president Ricky Vargas, was the fruit of many sacrifices on the part of the athletes, the coaches, and the whole organization.

"I'm eternally grateful for the athletes and for their sacrifices," Vargas told GMA News Online shortly after Paalam closed out his campaign.

"It was a huge sacrifice that we have them enter the bubble training at Inspire and it was also a huge sacrifice to send them to a training camp in Thailand. Everything was all worth it at this point."

The Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba, Laguna served as a safe haven early this year for the Filipino boxers, along with some national athletes from taekwondo and karate, amidst the pandemic.

They were then sent to a training camp to another bubble-type training in Muaklek in Thailand, where they trained with some Thai national boxers last March. During that stretch, though, Marcial was the only one missing as he was conducting his training at the Olympic Boxing Training Center in Colorado in the United States.

Aside from these training camps, also instrumental in the resurgence of Philippine boxing was Don Abnett, an Australian boxing consultant who has been steering the national boxing team for two years now.

He is someone who has brought an invaluable perspective to what the team has been doing.

"Now, the teamwork of the coaches and the perspective of Don Abnett changed the way we looked at how to compete in the Olympics. I'd like to thank him for that," Vargas said of Abnett.

"He serves as a fresh mind and he's someone who can see everything from the outside. It's hard if we will do everything on our own. We need fresh perspectives."

Vargas is looking to keep Abnett as part of the team until the next Olympics in 2024, including all of the preparation in between.

"We still have the SEA Games and the Asian Games and of course, the Paris Olympics. It's better if we have coach Don in those games," Vargas said.

And with a banner campaign in the books, it might be more realistic than ever to shoot for that one elusive goal: the Olympic boxing gold medal.

"We can still do more. I know we can get that gold with enough preparation."

—JMB, GMA News