MANILA: Philippine track queen Lydia De Vega has sprinted off with the man who got her pregnant, but she remained determined to be Asia’s fastest woman, her family and sports officials said here.
State run television broke the news about De Vega, 24 the Filipina “Golden Girl” who won the 100 meter dash in the 1982 New Delhi and 1986 Seoul Asian Games, but was eliminated in the 1988 Olympics.
“I feel happy about it, because as I’ve said, she’s in the right age to get married,” her father and onetime coach, Francisco De Vega told the television station.
“Lydia and me, will try to come back and let those reporters eat what they have said.”
Mr. De Vega was referring to statements that De Vega’s athletic future looked bleak after her Seoul performance.
Sources close the couple said De Vega was secretly wed in a civil ceremony to Paolo Mercade a 35 year old engineer earlier this month. The couple then ran off and was planning a Roman Catholic weddling later, they said.
“Lydia promised me that after her marriage and delivery she’ll start practicing again and vowed to be the first ever Asian sprinter to win the goal medal in the three successive Asiads,” Jose Sering head of the Philippine Olympic Committee, said,
De Vega was expecting her first child by September and should be ready for next year’s Asian Games in Beijing, Sering added.
Regarded as a heroine in the Philippines, she once starred in a movie about her life, titled “Golden Girl.”
Article extracted from this publication >> June 16, 1989
