To Filipino long jump titan Simeon Toribio, the road to his 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games bronze medal finish was long and rocky, marked by countless odds, endless sacrifices and many rigors that could have discouraged many a man.

As a boy in Loboc town in Bohol, where the Olympic hero was born on August 6, 1905, Toribio was frail and spare-framed. His playmates call him tukon (stick to local dialect) because he was a beanpole, tall for his age.