THIS will be a sequel of sort to an earlier piece I did on Tom Carrasco, the long-time Triathlon Association of the Philippines ( TRAP) head honcho who has turned over the leadership role to his assistant Mon Marchan just a few months ago.

But it does not mean Tom will disappear from the triathlon scene, for me, he will remain the face of triathlon as he has been there since the early 90’s.

It is just he will now shift attention to the Asian triathlon scene as the Sr. Vice President of Asian Triathlon ( AST) after being appointed to that position by the confederation President Prince Fahad from Saudi Arabia.

The new AST board has done its strategic planning session headed by Tom to plot out its plans and programs with focus on the athletes and paratriathlon, the Prince being the president for both regular and para athletes back home.

The group has established its pillars for its overall plan namely governance, members’ development, events, and marketing with goals and action steps for each pillar.

I found out that in Asia with its 37 member countries, it is divided into West Asia meaning the Midfke East countries, Central Asia, the ” tan” countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, South Asia where India and Pakistan, among others, belong, East Asia where the powerhouse triathlon countries are like Japan, China, and Hongkong, and Southeast Asia, our region with the likes of Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Tom made a point to the Prince when he presented the fact that no Asian triathlete has won any medal in the Olympics since the sport debuted in Australia in 2000, the closest being a 4th place in Sydney.

However, Asia has produced a world champion already in Kazakh Dmitry Gaag, the same guy who finished 4th in Australia and first in the wirld championship in 1999 in Montreal.

Japan’s Ai Ueda was a duathlon world champion, while Yuka Sato won the Youth Olympics gold in 2010.

And that is why the Prince has set sights on athlete development to try and get an Asian triathlete to do a podium finish in an Olympucs event, hopefully next year.

The group also wants to strengthen the organization using technology, and empower regional bodies while raising revenues through sponsorship to which the Prince has committed to getting. Triathlon events also have to comply with standards set by the sport’s ruling body, the World Triathlon nee International Triathlon Union.

Tom is happy that para triathlon has emerged as a focus are for AST and he pointed out a major concern in tge Philippines which is the lack of accredited classifiers for para athletes.

Our athletes are not currently classified and this is something he promised to work on , also the need to expand the base of local para athletes.

Perhaps the fact that the Philippines will once again host the Asian Para Triathlon Championship in Subic in 2024, our third time to do so, will encourage more PWDs to go into paratriathlon, not to mention that our national para athletes are already receiving allowances from the Philippine Sports Commission ( PSC).

Anthony Lozada, the AST Paratriathlon committee head has submitted both short and long term goals for Asian paratriathlon, in the list of his short term goals are establishing a network in Asia for para tri-events, hold training camps, conduct education and certification courses for paratri coaches, and intefrate the sport in regular Asia Cup triathlon events.

Long term goals are ensure a sustained funding for the development of the sport, increase the active participation of the different Asian national federations, and increase the number of para athletes in the continent.

On his part, Tom has also advised his successors in TRAP to focus on sustainability in race operations and work on revenue generation to lessen the NSA’s reliance on the PSC.

I understand the new officers of the NSA will be guesting in the Philippine Sportswriters Association ( PSA) Forum next week to present its own plans for 2024.

Hopefully, i will be there too.

Meanwhile, the AST board will be meeting early this month to issue marching orders to the different committees and so we can expect to see a more active triathlon landscape starting in 2024.

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