POC bares plans to immortalize the late Lydia de Vega at Olympic museum in Tarlac
POC President Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino visits the wake of Lydia De Vega at the Heritage Park in Taguig on Saturday, August 13, 2022. | Photo from Tolentino’s Facebook page.
CEBU CITY, Philippines — As tributes continue to pour for the late “Asian Sprint Queen” Lydia de Vega, who passed away recently, the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) also plans to immortalize the Filipina track and field superstar at the POC Olympic Museum in New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac.
The POC through its president, Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, will put up a special section at the POC Olympic Museum for the late “Asian Sprint Queen.”
The section will be made up of a wall where all of De Vega’s achievements will be displayed for the public to see.
Tolentino made the promise to De Vega’s daughter, Stephanie Mercado-Koenigswarter, and mother, Mary, when he visited De Vega’s wake at the Heritage Park in Taguig City on Saturday morning.
“Lydia’s legacy will forever be remembered. So we, the POC, are planning to put all her achievements on a wall inside the Olympic museum,” Tolentino told Mercado-Koenigswarter and Mary de Vega.
“Her achievements in the Southeast Asian Games, Asian Championships and Asian Games, among others, will be immoratlized there in the museum. She’ll be an inspiration to all aspiring athletes,” the POC president said.
Tolentino said that the planned section inside the POC Museum would be done very soon.
“This is the first time that the POC will have a home of its own. And a museum will be built to aptly highlight this home,” said the POC president.
De Vega passed away on August 10, 2022 at the age of 57. She succumbed to breast cancer.
She was best remembered as the most dominant sprinter in Asia in the 1980s. She won back-to-back gold medals in the Asian Games’ 100-meters in New Delhi 1982 and Seoul 1986. She also won multiple gold medals in the Asian Championships’ 100m and 200m sprints in 1983 and 1987.
De Vega’s wake will be transferred on Monday to her native Meycauyan in Bulacan where she once served as councilor.
Tolentino, meanwhile, will fly to Bangkok on Monday for a SEA Games Federation Council meeting on the Cambodia 32nd SEA Games in May 2023.
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