Sprint and Relay Specialist Shirley Strickland de la Hunty was known to be a great athlete, competing in the sport, athletics, mainly in relay. She is also a record-breaker. She is the first woman to win seven Olympic medals and to successfully defend her Olympic title in the 80m hurdles (1952-1956).
Here’s a brief overview of career as an athlete and her stint in the Olympics:
In three successive Olympic Games, Shirley Strickland competed in the 4×100m relay:
London 1948: Shirley’s first Olympic Games, at the age of 23. The Australian women had to make do with silver behind the Dutch team, …read more

Reading about Ilona Elek and her remarkable journey in the Olympics prodded me to feature her here at Light the Torch. A female Olympian that was able to win two Olympic golds and one silver. But that was not the thing that created an impression on me. It was the fact that achieved these things even when it seemed a bit difficult because of her age and that she had to go through war in between.
She first competed during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany in the women’s individual foil event. It was also her first gold, making her …read more

With all the talks of the Ateneo De Manila Blue Eagles winning over the University of Santo Tomas Growling Tigers in game 1 of the 69th UAAP Finals, I’m caused to delve further into Philippine Basketball history.
And here I chance upon Lauro Mumar aka “The Quick Brown Fox”, considered one of the greatest Basketball players to grace this sport in my country. Too bad I wasn’t alive then to watch him play when he co-led the Philippines to bag the gold in the 1951 and 1954 Asian Games in New Delhi and Manila, respectively.
Of course, if you think of …read more