Fifteen-year-old Mikeala Calamba was honored as the Athlete of the Year in yesterday’s 31st Sportswriters Association of Cebu (SAC)-San Miguel Brewery, Inc. (SMB) Cebu Sports Awards held at the North Wing Atrium of SM City Cebu.
“I am really happy, thankful and feel so blessed,” Calamba said in after receiving her Athelete of the Year trophy.
Calamba, an incoming fourth year high school student of the University of San Carlos, won a gold medal in the individual freestyle event in the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships last December in Colombia, besting jins from Vietnam, India and the USA.
“I worked hard but that victory was really unexpected because I was the youngest in that event,” Calamba said of her gold medal finish.
The pretty Cebuana jin said she will continue to train hard and will focus on the individual authorized Poomsae.
She added that she really feels proud about having been named the Athlete of the Year.
On her advice to aspiring athletes, she said, “I was once like them before, I was not famous but all you have to do is really train hard and prayers,” Calamba said.
Yesterday’s awarding was the most attended in recent history of the SAC-SMB Cebu Sports Awards.
Philippine Football Federation president Mariano “Nonong” Araneta and Philippine Azkals team manager Dan Palami were the special guests.
Pericles “Ricky” Dakay, the Presidential awardee, thanked the SAC for the accolade that he and the Cebu Football Association (CFA) received.
“I cannot thank you enough for this accolade that you have bestowed on both the general and the particular of the Cebu Football Association, for both organization and individual,” Dakay said.
The CFA was also named Sportsman of the Year.