MANILA (PNA) -- Forty seven gold and silver medal winners in recent 2013 National Youth Wrestling Championships will represent the country in the Sixth Southeast Asian Junior and Cadet Wrestling Championships set May 1-5 in Suphan Buri Province in Thailand.
Veteran cadet (16-17) Joshua Gayuchan of Ifugao State University, who won a bronze medal in Greco-Roman style last year, also in Suphan, will again be wearing the national colors in the hope of, this time, gifting the country its first gold medal in the annual competitions.
Marlou Onrubia, another grizzled international competitor from Zamboanga City, is expected to take charge anew in the junior (18-20) freestyle, while Baguio City?s Minalyn Foy-os sees action in the cadet women?s event.
Quezon City retained its supremacy as the overall national youth in the tournament held April 12-14 at the National Wrestling Gym inside the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.
With the theme, ?Ipanatili ang Buno sa Olimpiyada (Keep Wrestling in the Olympics),? a total of 160 grapplers, aged 10-20 years old, representing 20 clubs nationwide participated in the championships.
The Philippine Sports Commission, according to Wrestling Association of the Philippines secretary general Karlo Sevilla, has assured financial assistance to only 14 of those who made it to the SEA championships.
Sevilla added though that WAP is trying all its best to secure funding to 33 others, most of them coming from provincial clubs, so they could earn the trip and do honors for the country.
?Those who made it to the SEA championships are products of WAP?s efforts to create an immensely larger and deeper pool of young wrestlers nationwide, and casting wider nets with our competitions to catch potential elite wrestlers for the Philippine Team,? Sevilla said.
?If we?ll be able to send most?if not all?of our young qualifiers to Thailand this May, we?ll be able to make a fair assessment on our future performance in the SEA Games four to six years hence,? he said.
?These are young athletes, all of them teeners, who, if only they can get support, can make a difference in our future international commitments that?s why we in the WAP board are appealing from those who can afford to please help,? he said.
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