HANOI. – One would think that because he won five gold and two silver medals, world champion gymnast Carlos Edriel Yulo would be the hands-down choice as the best male athlete in the 31st Southeast Asian Games here.
Nothing of that sort.
Instead, the hosts have come up with something else: The Most Favorite Athlete Award — done through online voting.
Expectedly, a Vietnamese athlete — football star Hung Dung Do — is leading the race primarily because football is the most popular sport here.
And Yulo? Well, he’s in the list — at 10th, way behind Felisberto de Jesus of Timor Leste, who won two silver medals in athletics and is running fourth with 326 votes.
Yulo? He’s got 101 votes.
Hung shows the way with 3,782 votes, followed by Indonesian badminton star Pramudya Riyanto (1,399) and Vietnamese women’s cager Truong Thao (957).
Voting, which is done online via the official 31st SEA Games website, has not worked to the expectations of thousands of journalists covering the biennial multi-sport competitions that were postponed from last November because of the pandemic.
“It’s a popularity race and not exactly on how many gold medals an athlete won in the SEA Games,” said Malyn Bamba, head of the Public Communications Office of the Philippine Sports Commission that funded the preparation and participation of Team Philippines here.
“Of course, Vietnamese athletes have the edge because they’re playing on their home court,” Bamba said. “Besides, the awards as most popular athletes haven’t been really disseminated.”
Another race for the most popular football player of the games was put up by the hosts and, as expected, Hung also led the pack.
Yulo, who triumphed in the men’s individual all-around, floor exercise, rings, vault and high bar, and finished second in men’s team and parallel bars, left for Japan last Tuesday and probably couldn’t care less that he’s not the most popular athlete here.
