50. Welterweight Boxer MANFREDO ALIPALA, Lone Gold at the 1962 Jakarta Asiad

The 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta were the first to be held in the new 1960s decade from Aug. 24 to Sep. 4, 1962. Even with Japan wresting the boxing championship from the Philippines  in the last 1958 Tokyo Games, hopes were fresh for the 6 young Filipino boxers to deliver more medals.

Leading the charge was a Far Eastern University standout student boxer, MANFREDO Panes ALIPALA (b.  25 Oct. 1938) of Murcia, Negros Occidental, son of Moises Alipala, the municipal chief of police, and Consuelo Panes, school principal of Murcia Elementary School.

“Noning”, as he was called, grew up in Bacolod, and attended the West Negros College. He then went to Manila to pursue his higher education at the Far Eastern University, to take up a Business Administration course. The university was known for its excellent amateur boxing program so the athletic freshman joined the team and proved to be an excellent student, amassing wins in major interscholastic meets.

This led to Manfredo being sent as the FEU entry to the national open boxing championship. The 5’8” student athlete ruled his welterweight class (67 kg.) , which gave him a slot in the Philippine boxing team that went to Indonesia for the 1962 Asiad.

The boxing matches were held at the the Senayan Tennis Stadium in the last weeks of August. Alipala breezed through the rounds of 16, then made it to the  quarterfinals, and all the way to the semifinals.

Now, the only boxer standing in the way of a Gold Medal was the formidable Japanese opponent, Kichijiro Hamada, 4 years his junior and inches taller. But the tough Alipala held his ground and, at the end of the 3 rounds, was announced as the winner. He had secured the one and only boxing Gold for the Philippines in the 1962 Jakarta Games—one of only 7 that year--with the Silver going to Hamadas, and the Bronze, shared by Korea’s Choi Song-keun with Singto Jamjitman of Thailand.

 Incidentally, three team mates, bantamweight Jose Ramirez, featherweight Egino Grafia and lightweight Catalino Arpon contributed 3 Bronze Medals to the Philippine harvest.

Two years later, Manfred Alipala was at the head of the Philippine Olympic delegation proudly bearing the  country’s flag during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics parade of nations at the opening ceremonies. Joining him in the boxing campaign were Dominador Calumarde (flyweight), Arnulfo Torrevillas (bantamweight), Anthony Villanueva (featherweight), Rodolfo Arpon (lightweight), and Felix Ocampo (light-middleweight), with their able coach, Celestino “Aling” Enriquez.

 When the boxing preliminary matches commenced, Alipala subdued Iraq’s Al-Kharki Khalid. In the round of 16, he suffered a surprise defeat in the hands of Kichijiro Hamada, the same boxer whom he had conquered in Jakarta 2 years earlier. Despite this setback,  Anthony Villanueva saved the day for the boxers by winning a historic Silver.

A year after the Olympics, Alipala turned pro, fighting matches against Filipino boxing greats like  Eduardo Canete, Fil Ravalo and Phil Robinson. In the late 60s, he chased Oriental and World titles in the welterweight and middleweight class against boxers in the region like Korea’s Ki-Soo Kim and Hawaii’s Takeshi Fujii. He finished his professional career with a modest record of 3 Wins (1 by a knockout) and 8 losses.

About his personal life, Alipala was first married to Corazon N. Villanueva (d.2012), sister of Olympic silver medalist Anthony Villanueva, and his 1964 Tokyo team mate. Together, they had 4 children: Mariela, Manfriela, Manfredo Jr, and Mancor Alipala. After the couple's separation, he married Sebastiana Taguines and moved to Tarlac. This union produced Manbie, Marinette and Mylove Alipala.

Post-Olympics, Alipala held a few security jobs to provide for his growing family. After retirement, Alipala was taken in by the Philippine Sports Commission under chairman Mel Lopez, as a consultant. He and his family settled in barangay San Roque, in Tarlac City, Tarlac.

“My father lived a simple life, and  shied away from the limelight”, recalls daughter Manfriela.  “He was a nice person to everyone, especially to his friends in Bacolod.” At age 68,  boxing great Manfredo Alipala quietly died in his sleep, 8 Oct. 2006, and was interred at the Garden of Peace Memorial Park in nearby barangay Sapang Maragul.

SOURCES:

Information and pictures, courtesy of Manfriela Junet Alipala, daughter of Manfredo Alipala.

Alipala, Asiad gold medalist, dies at 68.(Sports News)(Obituary)Manila Bulletin, October 19, 2006 | Copyright

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfredo_Alipala

40. AMELITA ALANES: PH Olympian, Track Wonder of the 70s

AMELITA ALANES-SABERON earned 2 Asian Games Medals and was a
quarterfinalist in the 200 M. race at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

Dubbed as one of the “Track Wonders” of Southern Tagalog Athletic Association (STAA) in 1970s, AMELITA ALANES, reigned as the country’s premiere sprinter in the 1970s, winning in the Asian Championships, the Asian Games, and becoming a member of the national athletics team that competed at the tragedy-ridden Munich Olympics in 1972.

She was born in La Carlota, Negros Occidental on 28 Feb. 1952, the daughter of farmer parents. She had her start running barefoot in her hometown in 1966, because her parents could not afford the spiked shoes for sprinting. Yet, she often beat bigger opponents, She then progressed to inter-scholastic meets, where she established 3 junior records.

That was how the shoeless, but fleet-footed Alanes was spotted by Gov. Isidro Rodriguez and Southern Tagalog athletic officials. They offered to train her for inclusion in their much vaunted talent pool. The athletes from Southern Tagalog Athletic Association (STAA) were then considered powerhouse at the Bureau of Public Schools-Interscholastic Athletics Association Games (BPISAA)—which would later be renamed Palarong Pambansa in 1974.

On many occasions, STAA had captured the major championships of the BPISAA Games, lording over tough competition from Western Visayas and Mindanao. Southern Tagalog’s strengths lie in football, basketball and athletics. Alanes joined the Rizal’s women’s athletic team---and her baptism of fire in big league athletics began immediately.

Armed with just her 3 junior records and regional wins, the 18 year old was among the last to be chosen for the 1970 Asiad line-up.

She would come home with a Silver Medal in the 200 meter dash, the highest honor won in Bangkok, by the country’s track and field delegation. She recalls the moments leading to her magnificent win in the Asiad. She had raced in the 200 m. heats, placing second to the formidable Olympic medalist Chi Cheng of Chinese Taipei, who came in at 23.7 secs., a new Asian record, despite pulled muscles in both legs,

Later, it was announced that the frontrunner Chi Cheng was pulling out of the 200 meter finals due to her injury. At the Supachalasai Stadium, she remembers thinking “May pag-asa na rin kahit konti”, as she set her feet on the starting blocks. As the gun sounded, Alanes burst into action and sped off, hands flailing, and reaching the finish bunched up with other runners.

She was uncertain if she had done enough. But when the electronic scoreboard flashed the results, Alanes saw her name in 2^nd place, clocking 25.2 secs. behind Keiko Yamada of Japan  (25 secs.), with Indonesia’s Carolina Rieuwpassa coming in 3^rd (25.4 secs.). She remembers sobbing on the shoulders of her coach and being swamped by her fellow runners.

The Philippine performance at the Bangkok Games turned out to be one of the poorest for the country, with Ricardo Fortaleza’s lone boxing gold. The track delegation could only contribute 3 Bronzes and 1 Silver—courtesy of Alanes, who saved the day for the Philippines. Moving forward upon her return, Alanes resumed her training with her team mates to prepare for the biggest competition in her life—this time, at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

The 1972 BPISAA Games in Vigan held for a week starting on April 11, served as a tryout to the Olympics scheduled later in the year in August. Once more, the Southern Tagalog Athletic Association came ready, armed with its finest athletes, among them,  the Rizal  women’s athletic team. The quartet of track wonders included Lucila Salao, Aida Mantawel, Rosalinda Yumol, and the Asian Games medalist Amelita Alanes. Alanes, with the best credentials, did not disappoint.

Alanes competed in 3 individual events: 100 m., 200 m. and 400 m. She won them all, earning 3 Golds and cementing her reputation as the country’s top sprinter. Together with Salao, Mantawel and Yumol, they won berths in the Philippine National Team that were sent to Munich in August for the 20th Olympic competitions.

The infamous Munich Summer Games were held from Aug. 26 to Sep. 12.  Alanes was entered in her favorite events: the 100 and 200 meter dash, and the team event, 4 x 100 m. relay with Salao, Mantawel and Yumol. In her century dash heat, she ran alongside the East German amazon, Renate Stecher. Alanes made a quick exit, timing in at inexplicably at slow 12.37 secs. As expected Stecher topped that heat and advanced all the way to the Finals to win the Gold with a world record time of 11.06 seconds.

Alanes fared better in the 200 meters, timing in at 24.98 secs. in 7^th place, which was good enough to put her into the Quarterfinal rounds. She was eliminated in Round 1, clocking in at 25.28, and thus did not  advance to the semifinals. Stecher, again, won the 200 m. finals Gold in convincing fashion, with an amazing 22.1 secs. clocking. Alanes also lucked out in the 4 x100 m. relay race, as the team was disqualified in the 1^st heat.

 When Alanes returned to the Philippines, she set her sights on the inaugural 1973 Asian Athletics Championships in Manila. There, at the Rodriguez Sports Center in Marikina, the track wonder won the Gold with an 11.6 seconds in the 100m. ahead of 2 Japanese Michiko Morita and Sayo Yamato who clocked identical 12 secs. 

In 1978, the now married Amelita Alanes-Saberon competed in her last Asian Games, also in Bangkok, Thailand. The 8^th edition of these games, held from Dec. 14-19, were controversial because they were not sanctioned by the International Amateur Athletics Federation due to the exclusion of Israel by the organizers. The Philippines had a dismal showing in Bangkok, with no gold medal to show. Still, Alanes, who was entered in the 4 x 100 M. Relay along with Lucila Tolentino-Salao, Rosalinda Yumol and Lydia Silva-Netto salvaged the Bronze in 47 seconds flat, behind Thailand (Gold, 46.20 secs.) and Japan (Silver, 46. 78 secs.).

Alanes-Saberon registered her personal best of 11.4 seconds for the 100 meter dash in 1974. It stood as a National Record for 13 long years before Lydia de Vega broke it at the 1987 Southeast Asian Games, with a time of 11.28 secs.  

SOURCES

Olympic database, Amelita Alanes, https://www.olympiandatabase.com/index.php?id=53690&L=1

The Filipino Athlete, The Munich Olympics, Oct. 1972