Philippine boxing looks ahead
THE sport of boxing has delivered more than half of the Olympic medals we have won, that is a fact.
Unfortunately, it is also a fact that we have not won yet a gold in the Olympics, the closest was Anthony Villanueva in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics where he lost to a Russian in a controversial finals fraught with questions.
The fact is weightlifting and gymnastics have beaten boxing in the race to the Olympic gold as Hidilyn Diaz got her historic first ever gold for us in Tokyo 4 years ago.
Caloy Yulo delivered an even bigger accomplishment this year in the Paris Olympics with his double gold medal finish, assuring himself of a very merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.
And so boxing is now looking forward to getting its share of golden glory come the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, unless the newly formed international boxing federation to replace the graft-ridden
Amateur Boxing International Association( AIBA) in the eyes of the International Olympic Committee( IOC) , fails to get its act together on time for 2028.
The last two Olympics saw the IOC supervising the boxing event after it expelled AIBA, and according to Anateur Boxibg Association of the Philippines (ABAP) secretary general Marcus Jarwin, who dropped by the office at the Philippine Sports Commission ( PSC) early this week, the IOC does not want to do the job again in 2028.
Marcus is confident of the new international federation which has doubled its members to 60 from the 30 members it started with a few years ago..
On that assumption, Marcus has started planning for 2028 and shared with me and Commissioner Fritz Gaston ABAP’s initial plans for 2025, boxing being under the oversight of Comm. Gaston.
For one, he wants to increase the number of boxers from its current 47 to 60 with the additional athletes to be junior and women, the latter he says is the more difficult one as our female boxers are getting older though Nesthy Petecio still wishing for a last Olympic stint, the SEA Games next year might be a gauge of her condition.
It took 10 years for ABAP to develop Aira Villegas, added Marcusto emphasize his point about the situation in women’s boxing .
The key according to him is to strengthen the grassroots program of ABAP , focusing on the junior ranks to be the next generation of national boxers.
He plans to do regional programs to entice younger people to go into boxing and he is looking at partnerships with LGU’s for this project.
ABAP may even get its foreign coach to go into the grassroots level at thecsane time to help train local coaches who can eventually be the head coaches.
Another program discussed was the need for our boxers to get into international training camps that are held just before major events including the Asian championships and the SEA Games.
This led to the idea if the Philippines holding its own international training camps here instead of just sending our boxers abroad.
Marcus is confident that countries like India, Thailand, China, and Korea would grab the opportunity to attend here with the impressive reputation our boxers have developed.
Actually, when Fritz and I went to China earlier this year to look at possible sports exchange programs with Fujian Province, the sports officials there specifically mentioned boxing as a reciprocal program from our side ,
Marcus mentioned his idea too of formibg a pool of younger boxers and bringing them to Baguio to train at certain times of the year, depending on scheduled international competitions at lower age groups.
As it is, boxing is the only NSA that houses its athletes at the PSC facilities at the Teachers Camp,other NSA’s just do periidic training in Baguio.
For me, boxing has bern one of the better NSA’s here in terms of planning and executing its programs and the results can speak for themselves as far as I am concerned.
And the PSC will be behind them all the way.
Today Sunday, I will be doing my rounds of the streets in Manila to distribute toys and family gift packs to street folks, not the first time this season as two weeks ago, , together with some PSC staff, I did it already.
In fact everyday, I have in the car toysxand family packs that I give out everytime I am on the road. Abd I would like to thanks all the people who have helped me with this long time initiative, they are too many to mention by name, but they know who they are.
Christmas Day is just three days away and it is good to be able to do our share of sgaribg one’s blessings with the those who have less in life, street kids being one of them.
Merry Christmas to one and all.
