WHO DARES WINS

[Daring memories on February 20, 2014]

Anent his rare, remarkable achievement, I’d like also to have for him a little short piece for I am so very impressed with this purely Filipino-blooded Christian Michael Martinez. He proved to all and sundry that regardless of one’s geographical location, the iceless sun-rising East that is, even freezing cold dreams could also be hotly chased.

In Sochi Winter Olympics, where mostly Caucasians and rednecks and countries with regular snowflakes and fog blitz have the skills if not the right to participate, Martinez showed that a Filipino can also try, and make, the improbable, if not the impossible, when it comes to ice skates because, in sports, there’s no such thing as fate.

Everything is a result of hardwork and determination to succeed; everything boils down to one’s capability on how to hurdle hardship. To try to achieve what the mind can conceive, recognizing that perfection is attained only through diligent practice.

Okay, last I heard, Christian Michael just landed on the 24th place, but more than a crown, he earned what matters the most: world respect. Allowing a tropical creature exposed to parched lands and dried tundra to compete against the icemen in the ice arena, would be like pitting an ambitious polar bear in the desert for a sprint race against a hungry hyena. A mismatch would be an epic understatement. It’s like unleashing Pacquiao in your neighborhood boxing tournament.

But alas, Christian Michael did surpass, or overcome, whatever doubt he’s had, as well as the naysayers whose admiration of him now is as ubiquitous as Metro Manila’s floods. I remember the story of the four Jamaicans in the movie “Cool Runnings,” where their team was also officially qualified in Olympic Winter Games for bobsled racing.  They may not have won any medal but they captured the most coveted, most captivating award any Olympian could ever dream about: the hearts of human beings. More than gold, silver, and bronze that brightly shine, world respect with love and praises would last even beyond an athlete’s lifetime.

Unlike Christian Michael Martinez, many of us don’t realize that opportunities in this world are definitely limitless. We fear to get out of our shell of mediocrity and smallness because we’re thinking of failure rather than success. At his young age of seventeen, Christian has already attained a great something that had been reached only by a few Pinoy young men: becoming an Olympian. Being qualified therein alone would already be considered a rare achievement as it is the elites’ place where he who’s listed to play out there is the best among humans.

The British Special Air Service believes, “Who dares, wins,” as only the gutsy satisfies his doubting soul, as only in giving everything can a man see his brightest best and personal capacity in full. The Preacher said, “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

In the Olympics, not only the winners are cheered, loved and cherished, but also those who have fallen got up and hobbled to finish the race. In the mission field, “let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” that in the end we’ll say too, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (Heb. 12:1; II Tim. 4:7).

To borrow those Jamaicans’ coach’s line: “See you at the finish line.”