MANILA - Track legend Lydia de Vega - once hailed as Asia's fastest woman and one of the Philippines' most decorated and beloved athletes - has died after a four-year battle with breast cancer. She was 57.
"She fought the very good fight and is now at peace," De Vega's daughter Stephanie de Koenigswarter said in a Twitter post late Wednesday (Aug 10).
De Vega won 15 gold medals throughout her career, including nine from the Southeast Asian Games.
She became a track superstar in the Philippines when, at 18 years old, she won gold medals in the 200m and 400m events at the 1981 Manila SEA Games.
She would go on to dominate the 200m event in the 1983 and 1987 SEA Games, and then rule the 100m in the 1987, 1991 and 1993 SEA Games.
Her time of 11.28 seconds in the 100m - clocked in 1987 - still stands as a SEA Games record.
De Vega also won two Asian Games gold medals - in New Delhi in 1982 and Seoul in 1986, and competed as well in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.
Her hard-won victories cemented her reputation as Asia's "track queen".
Retirement in Singapore
She retired in 1994, after winning her last two medals in the 1993 SEA Games.
She then had forays in politics and government service.
In 2005, she opted for the low-key life of an athletics coach in Singapore.
Her last public appearance was in the 2019 SEA Games, where she, along with the Philippines' other sporting legends, carried the Philippine flag.
But it was her battle with cancer, disclosed by her family last month, that would ultimately be "the biggest race of her life", her daughter said.
Born on Dec 12, 1964, in Meycauayan city, an hour north of the capital Manila, De Vega was the daughter of a policeman whose rigid coaching fuelled her early successes.
Rivalry with PT Usha
It was her legendary rivalry with India's Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil Usha - PT Usha - that made De Vega a household name among Asia's sports fans.
The two first went toe-to-toe in the 100m in the 1982 Asian Games, when De Vega took control mid-way into the race to win the event.
But by 1985, Usha was at the top of her game, copping five gold medals in the Asian Championships in Indonesia. De Vega managed just one bronze medal.
Then, in the 1986 Seoul Asian Games, while Usha - known as the "Payyoli Express", a reference to her village in Kerala - dominated the 400m and 400m hurdles, De Vega reasserted her dominance in her favourite event: the 100m.
Usha would not be denied in the 200m, edging De Vega by just 0.3 second, to win the gold.
The two squared off again in the 1987 Asian Championships. While Usha remained uncontested in the 400m events, De Vega again proved her superiority over Usha in the 100m and 200m.
De Vega was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018. She had since gone through several medical procedures, including brain surgery last month.
"We lost one of our own, one of our best, but her spirit will live on in our hearts," said Philippine athletics chief Terry Capistrano.
