Who is David Nepomuceno, the First Filipino Olympian?
Sometime in the near future, Philippine history textbooks will be revised, thanks to the events of July 26 to August 11, 2024. The addendum: glory and valor at the Paris Olympics.
Years from now, Gen Alpha students—and, why not, Gen Beta and Gen Gamma too—will learn about the high-flying artistry of Carlos Yulo. They’ll marvel at the boxing brilliance of Aira Villegas, and they’ll wonder why Nesthy Petecio kept saying “Eyyy” in her post-fight interviews.
Yulo, Villegas, and Petecio all deserve to be immortalized in the chronicles of Pinoy athletes. But, if it’s not too much to ask, I’d like to make a simple request of our textbook writers.
Could we devote more than a footnote to the Filipino Olympian who started it all?
An entire century before the Philippine Olympic Committee fielded a delegation of 22 strong, a Bicolano athlete stood as the nation’s lone representative at the 1924 Games. As far as fellow athletes go, this man had no compatriot to crack jokes with or offer an empathic hug.
We’re talking, of course, about David Nepomuceno.
A native of Oas, Albay, Nepomuceno was a sprinter who’d made a name for himself in the Far Eastern Games. In 1924, Nepomuceno made history as the Philippines’ first-ever Olympic delegate. (The host city of the Olympics that year, by the way, was none other than Paris.)
David Nepomuceno Spent 33 Days on a Steamship Going to Paris
According to a piece by Jojo de Jesus for Dateline Ibalon, Nepomuceno embarked on a 33-day journey via steamship from Manila to Marseilles. Adding to the mileage was a train ride to Paris, a destination that Nepomuceno—along with his coach Dr. Regino Ylanan—finally reached a week before the Games.
Reportedly, most of Nepomuceno’s opponents were already in Paris by the time the Bicolano arrived. Hounded by the fatigue of travel—and, perhaps, the disadvantage of foes who’d become more acclimated to the competition venue—Nepomuceno failed to make it past the trials of the 100-meter and 200-meter heats.
In a magazine interview sometime after the 1924 Olympics, Nepomuceno was quoted as saying, “Sana ‘yung mga susunod sa akin ay hindi maranasan ang naranasan ko.”
Was Nepomuceno’s Olympic stint in vain? If we’re going strictly by medal tally, the record books show that he brought home zero medals that year. But, if we take the wiser approach and look at the big picture, we can see how Nepomuceno’s presence in Paris paved the way for future Filipino athletes to achieve their own feats of Olympic greatness.
In 1928—just one Olympic cycle after Nepomuceno—swimmer Teofilo Yldefonso bagged the Philippines’ first-ever medal at the Amsterdam Games. Yldefonso, who earned the monicker “Ilocano Shark,” would replicate his bronze feat at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, where Jose Villanueva (boxing) and Simeon Toribio (athletics) won their own bronze medals.
Eight decades later, the Philippines’ medal tally stood at three silver and seven bronze. Then, like a long-awaited downpour after an extensive drought, Hidilyn Diaz and Carlos Yulo started a golden streak that ran through Tokyo and Paris.
How apropos, then, that the Philippines’ historic double gold happened in the city where our Olympic journey began. As our athletes gear up for more Summer Games in the coming decades, I hope they can gain inspiration and perspective from the man who ran the race first.
No Monetary Compensation
In his Dateline Ibalon piece, de Jesus offers this quote from Rustum Nepomuceno, a descendant of the Oas sprinter: “Unlike the sports figures of today, there was no monetary compensation for the honor. Lolo David died a simple man.”
But, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the legacy of Rustum’s lolo is worth more than any cash incentive, brand endorsement, or lavish condominium unit that anyone could offer.
May the textbooks of tomorrow herald this beautiful truth: David Nepomuceno ran so that Hidilyn Diaz could lift and Carlos Yulo could fly.
