5 LOCAL ATHLETES

1. Elma Muros
Elma Muros-Posadas (born January 14, 1967 in Magdiwang, Romblon) also known as the
"Long Jump Queen" of the Philippines and a heptathlon champion, is a former member of
the Philippine Track and Field National Team and now a legend in Philippine track and field
history who specialized in long jump. She also competed in the heptathlon, 100m and 400m
hurdles, 100m, 200m, and 400m sprint alongside the "Sprint Queen" of the Philippines and
also fellow legend, Lydia de Vega, Elma is one of the foremost track and field athletes
produced by the Philippines under the Marcos Regime's National Sports Program, Gintong
Alay, that was launched in 1979, but was eventually disbanded in 1986 due to the People
Power Revolution and the ousting of Ferdinand Marco. Muros was involved in track and field
competitively as early as when she was 14 years old. At that time, she was scouted by local
officials looking for potential athletes for the Southern Tagalog Regional Athletics Association
sporting meet.

2. Lydia De Vega Mercado

De Vega was discovered in the Palarong Pambansa (transl. national games) in the 1970s,
and was recruited to be a part of Far Eastern University Tamaraws varsity track team. She
then became a member of the Gintong Alay track and field program. She was coached by
her father Francisco "Tatang" de Vega who was assisted by Claro Pellosis. Santos Magno
and Anthony Benson later joined her training staff. De Vega first made an impact at the 1981
Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) held in Manila with gold medal performances in the
200 and 400 meter events exceeding records set at the Asian Games. As Asia's sprint
queen, she ran away with the gold medal in the 100-meter dash in the 1982 Asian Games in
New Delhi and duplicated the feat in the same event at the 1986 edition in Seoul where she
clocked 11.53 seconds. She developed a rivalry with Indian athlete P. T. Usha. De Vega won
the gold in the 100 meters at the SEA Games (1987, 1991 and 1993). She also topped the
200 meter event in 1981, 1983, 1987 and 1993. She has twice won both the 100 and 200
meter golds in the Asian Athletics Championships – 1983 and 1987. As a 16-year old in the
1981 edition, she placed second in the 400 meter run and also bagged the bronze medal in
the 200 meters.

3. Hector Begeo
Hector Begeo (born June 19, 1964) is a three-time Olympian representing the Philippines.
He is the national record holder in the men's 3000 meters steeplechase. He also placed
second in the 1983 Asian Athletics Championships and third in the steeplechase at the 1982
Asian Games. He is the only Filipino to advance into a semi-final in the 3000 m
Steeplechase in an Olympic event during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He also represented the
Philippines at the 1997 World Championships in Athletics. “Na inspire ako sa mga dating
mananakbo ng aming local school at naging sa mga atleta ng bansa, kaya sila ang naging
role model ko sa mga competisyon na ginampanan ko.”
 4. Eric Shauwn Cry
Eric Shauwn Brazas Cray (born November 6, 1988) is a Filipino-American track and field
athlete who competes in sprinting and hurdling events. He represented the Philippines at the
2013 World Championships in Athletics, competing in the hurdles. He won gold medals at
the Southeast Asian Games in 2013 and 2015. Cray currently holds the Filipino national
record for the 400 meters hurdles and 100 meters. He holds dual American-Filipino dual
citizenship but decided to compete for the Philippines in December 2011 upon the request of
his mother. The application to compete for the Philippines was approved in 2013 by the IAAF.
He set a new national record and games record in the 400 m hurdles while winning at the
2015 Southeast Asian Games, setting a time of 49.40 seconds.

5. Rene “The Calve man” Herrera

Rene Gamarcha Herrera (born April 24, 1979) is a Filipino track and field athlete. In total he
has won 5 gold medals at Southeast Asian games. Currently, Herrera is one of the newly
appointed coaches of the Philippines national athletics team. One of the heirs of Begeo was
the Guimaras native Herrera, who spent most of his athletic career training in Baguio under
the watch of master coach ‘Super’ Mario Castro.
Rene would win a streak of 5 straight titles from 2003 to 2011 in the Steeple Chase. Before
being succeeded by Christopher Ulboc. Rene befriended Olympic Champion Mo Farah of
England during the London Olympics. While still an athlete, Herrera guided Jessa Mangsat
to a then Philippines Track and Field Record in the Women’s Steeple Chase; he is formally a
national coach.

5 INTERNATIONAL ATHLETES

1. Jackie Joyner- Kersee

Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee (born March 3, 1962) is a retired American track and field
athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the heptathlon as well as long jump.
She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals in those two events at four
different Olympic Games. Sports Illustrated for Women magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the
Greatest Female Athlete of All-Time. She is on the board of directors for USA Track & Field
(U.S.A.T.F.), the national governing body of the sport. Joyner-Kersee is an active
philanthropist in children's education, racial equality and women's rights. She is a founder of
the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, which encourages young people in East St. Louis to
pursue athletics and academics. She collaborated with Comcast to create the Internet
Essentials program in 2011, which provides high-speed internet access to low-income
Americans.Joyner-Kersee is one of the most famous athletes to have overcome severe
asthma.

2. Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe, byname of James Francis Thorpe, (born May 28, 1888, near Prague, Indian
Territory [now in Oklahoma], U.S.—died March 28, 1953, Lomita, California), one of the most
 accomplished all-around athletes in history who in 1950 was selected by American
sportswriters and broadcasters as the greatest American athlete and the greatest gridiron
football player of the first half of the 20th century. Predominantly of American Indian (Sauk
and Fox) descent, Thorpe attended Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas, and Carlisle
(Pennsylvania) Indian Industrial School. While playing football for Carlisle under coach Pop
Warner, he was chosen as halfback on Walter Camp’s All-America teams in 1911 and 1912.
He was a marvel of speed, power, kicking, and all-around ability. Also in 1912 Thorpe won
the decathlon and the pentathlon by wide margins at the Olympic Games in Stockholm, but
in 1913 an investigation by the Amateur Athletic Union showed that he had played
semi-professional baseball in 1909 and 1910, which should have disqualified him from
Olympic competition. He was subsequently deprived of his gold medals.

3. Bruce Jenner
Caitlyn Jenner, original name William Bruce Jenner, (born October 28, 1949, Mount Kisco,
New York, U.S.), American decathlete who won a gold medal at the 1976 Olympic Games in
Montreal with a then record score of 8,618 points and in 2015 became by far the most
prominent athlete to publicly come out as transgender. Bruce Jenner began an athletic
career at Newton (Connecticut) High School, where Jenner lettered in gridiron football,
basketball, and athletics and independently took up waterskiing, becoming East Coast
all-over champion in 1966, 1969, and 1971. Jenner entered Graceland College (Lamoni,
Iowa) in 1969 on a football scholarship, but a knee injury restricted Jenner to basketball and
track. After first participating in the decathlon in 1971, Jenner finished 10th in the event at the
1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany. Then Jenner moved to California to train
with individual-event stars rather than with other decathlon athletes

4. Usian Bolt
Usain Bolt, in full Usain St. Leo Bolt, (born August 21, 1986, Montego Bay, Jamaica),
Jamaican sprinter who won gold medals in the 100-metre and 200-metre races in an
unprecedented three straight Olympic Games and is widely considered the greatest sprinter
of all time.Bolt, the son of grocers in Jamaica’s rural Trelawny parish, excelled as a cricket
fast bowler in his preteen years. He developed a deep affection for the European football
(soccer) teams Real Madrid and Manchester United, but his school coaches steered him
toward track and field. Bolt first marked himself as a track prodigy at the 2002 world junior
championships. In that meet, racing before a crowd of 36,000 in Jamaica’s National Stadium
in Kingston, Bolt—just 15 years old at the time—won gold in the 200 metres, becoming the
youngest-ever male world junior champion in any event. At age 16 Bolt cut the junior (age 19
and under) 200-metre world record to 20.13 sec, and at 17 he ran the event in 19.93 sec,
becoming the first teenager to break 20 seconds in the race. However, hampered by a
hamstring injury, he failed to advance beyond the 200-metre heats at the 2004 Olympics in
Athens and placed last in the 2005 world track-and-field championships final.

5. Wilma Rudolph
Wilma Rudolph, in full Wilma Glodean Rudolph, (born June 23, 1940, St. Bethlehem, near
Clarksville, Tennessee, U.S.—died November 12, 1994, Brentwood, Tennessee), American
sprinter, the first American woman to win three track-and-field gold medals in a single
Olympics. Rudolph was sickly as a child and could not walk without an orthopedic shoe until
she was 11 years old. Her determination to compete, however, made her a star basketball
player and sprinter during high school in Clarksville, Tennessee. She attended Tennessee
State University from 1957 to 1961. At age 16 she competed in the 1956 Olympic Games at
Melbourne, Australia, winning a bronze medal in the 4 × 100-metre relay race. In 1960,
before the Olympic Games at Rome, she set a world record of 22.9 seconds for the
200-metre race. In the Games themselves she won gold medals in the 100-metre dash (tying
the world record: 11.3 seconds), in the 200-metre dash, and as a member of the 4 ×
100-metre relay team, which had set a world record of 44.4 seconds in a semifinal race. She
was Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) 100-yard-dash champion (1959–62).