PH boxers continue quest for tokyo Olympic berths
Credit to Author: Eddie G. Alinea| Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 16:16:51 +0000
The Philippine men’s boxing team, headed by AIBA silver medalist Eumir Felix Marcial, flies to Bangkok on Sunday to attend a two-week training camp in preparation for the coming pair of Olympic qualifying tournaments set next month and May in two separate venues.
Joining Marcial, a middleweight, are 30th Southeast Asian Games gold medal winners Carlo Paalam (light-flyweight), Rogen Ladon (flyweight) and James Palicte (light-welterweight), silver medalist Marjon Pianar (welterweight) and bronze medalist Ian Clark Bautista (bantamweight).
In the team, too, are coaches Ronald Chavez and Roel Velasco and Australian consultant Don Abett.
The Bangkok sojourn, according to Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines secretary general Ed Picson, makes up for the team’s failure to proceed with the planned camp in Australia before the SEA Games because of problems obtaining visas.
“The camp in Bangkok will, actually include several countries in Europe and Asia-Pacific, so the boys will, have the chance to spar with bigger opponents, especially in the higher weight categories like Eumir, Palicte and Bautista, which they failed to experience,” Picson said.
The first of two remaining Olympic qualifying tournaments is set on February 3 to 11 in Wuhan, China, while the second in Europe in a date and place still to be decided by the International Olympic Committee.
Besides, Chavez butted in, “we were told that there will be a one-day pocket tournament in the course of the camp. So, additional exposure pa rin yun sa mga bata.”
For Velasco, the fact that this year’s Olympics is scheduled in Tokyo, “the luck of the country’s first silver in the 1964 Games could rub on us para sa gold naman this time.”
“Suwerte ang Tokyo sa atin, who knows baka doon din tayo manalo ng gold,” Velasco with a wide grin in reference to the late Anthony Villanueva’s second place finish 56 years ago.
Two of the Philippines’ three silver medals so far came in boxing, including that of Velasco’s younger brother Mansueto ‘Onyok’ in 1996 in Atlanta. The third was courtesy of weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz just four years ago in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Three of the country’s seven bronze medal winnings it first took part in the quadrennial conclave in 1924, were courtesy of boxers – Jose “Cely” Villanueva, Anthony’s father, in Los Angeles in 1932, Leopoldo Serrantes in Seoul in 1988 and Roel himself in 1992 in Barcelona.
The Philippines has actually won a pair of Olympic gold medals courtesy of bowler Arianne Cerdena in 1988 and wushu ace Willy Wang in Beijing 2008 when their respective sport were contested as demonstration events.
Two more bronze were won by tae kwon do jins Stephen Fernandez and ex-gymnast-turned jin Bea Lucero in 1992 also as demo events.