Unknown to many, Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski actually tried to qualify for the 2000 Sydney Olympics – two years before she cemented her legacy in Busan.
“I was actually trying to qualify for the 2000 Olympics. Again, it’s a horse of a different caliber. So you know, it would be the best of the best horse athlete to compete in the Olympics,” shared Cojuangco in Tiebreaker Vodcasts’ So She Did!, presented by SMART.
“At that time that I had an opportunity because my coach was not planning to compete in the Olympics, but the horse that she competed on in 1996 was still active. And she said that she would let me lease that horse to be able to try to qualify for Sydney.
Unfortunately, though, things didn’t pan out for the equestrian prodigy, putting her dreams of representing the country in the games in the backseat.
With her Olympic aspirations shelved, Cojuangco decided to focus on her family – marrying her long-time partner Robert Jaworski, Jr. They also had their first child the same year, preventing her from getting into the wild card phase for Sydney.
“Well, things didn’t work out the way that I was hoping they would, and I decided to get married and have my first child — he was born in January 2000. And I actually was trying to get a wild card to compete in Sydney still… so that didn’t happen,” she said.
Still, Cojuangco admitted that she had no regrets over missing the 2000 edition of the Olympics. In fact, the former showbiz personality believes that if she had landed a spot in Sydney, it would have been her last hurrah in the sport.
And well, it’s safe to say that things turned out pretty well for the daughter of former POC president Peping Cojuangco. She was able to win gold in the 2002 Busan Asian Games and in the 2005 SEA Games in Manila.
“In hindsight, for me, [it] was just because I was meant to compete in the Asian Games in 2002. If I had competed in Sydney, I would’ve retired I think after that,” she said.
“Yeah, right. I’m there, you know. So it’s huge and we just really have to have faith. We just have to do our best and be our best where we are, and be open to where that’s gonna take us. I never thought of competing in the Olympic games after 2002.”
More importantly, her dreams of participating in the Olympics were, in a way, turned to reality after she was named in the International Olympic Committee Executive Board just a month ago.
