Meet The Team Behind Philippine's Success Over China in the Asian Olympics!

Let us introduce you to the team behind our country's victory over Chinese cagers in the first ever Far Eastern Games on year 1913, an Olympics version for Asia. Filipino cagers defeated both delegates from Japan and China.

We all know the struggle of our nation to conquer sports being that we are always deemed as the underdogs when it comes to height advantages.

Asia's Far Eastern Games served as a summit for the colonizer's attempts on introducing Western sports to the region. It was the mantra of rookies from Philippine Amateur Athletic Foundation (PAAF) to give a "play for every body."

PAAF was lucky enough to bring China and Japan to Manila and join the "First Oriental Olympic Games" in 1913 at the Manila Carnival Grounds.

And so, in February, the games were held. Team Philippines dominated the 1913's athletic meet. The victory continued from 1913 to 1934

with a nine out of ten championships.

Sadly, in 1921, the Chinese cagers beat the Philippines and seized the basketball crown but not only for long. As our team strived hard in training, they took the bacon from China in 1923.

The Philippines Basketball Team of the 1923 players were namely, Vicente Avena, Augusto Bautista, Aurelio Buenconsejo, Jovito Gonzales, Joanquin Inigo, Elpidio Jose, Eliterio Montelibano, Pedro Robles, Luis Salvador, and Mariano Sangle.

These boys' hype continued to emerge as they finished 5th in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and won a gold medal and three more in 1954, 1958, and 1962.

From this time, the country's basketball fate pioneered the future Filipinoo cagers and players although not much acknowledged.

The reason why most people didn't know about this legendary team was because information "were either destroyed or burned during the Pacific War while those that were spared and subsequently stored at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex were either misplaced or lost during the floods which devastated the aging RMSC grounds."

Up until now, the Philippines is still looking forward for another history to repeat itself.