Philippine sports community has lost one of the top-prized boxers who give honor to the country in the sport of boxing.
Leopoldo “Pol” Serantes, 59, succumbed yesterday at 8:30 am, while being confined at the Intensive Care Unit of the Veterans Memorial Medical Center. He was 59.
Serantes’ suffered complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. According to her daughter Leodelyn in a post by sportscaster Ron de los Reyes, his father has been going back and forth to the hospital since January and had been intubated 13 times. His condition worsened by Tuesday afternoon, and later died the following morning.
Serantes, a retired Army Lieutenant, made headlines more than 3 decades ago when he won the bronze medal at the Men’s Flyweight class of the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, thus ending then-24 year medal drought for Team Pilipinas.
His medal triumph paved way to Philippine’ boxing domination in the succeeding Olympics, including a bronze medal from Roel Velasco in ’92 Barcelona, silver medal from Onyok Velasco in ’96 Atlanta, and just recently, 2 silver and a bronze medal haul courtesy of Nesthy Petecio, Carlo Paalam and Eumir Marcial in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Just this year, Kuya Pol was recognized as one of the 10 members of the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame 2021 batch. In August, Chooks-To-Go also recieved 100,000 pesos per month lifetime medical assistance to Serantes.
Sports On Air would like to express our thoughts and prayers to his family and for the eternal repose of the soul of Leopoldo Serantes.
