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Philippines, 25 Nov 2024 |
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Philippine Amateur Boxing: When Will We Learn? By Bill Velasco PhilBoxing.com Mon, 12 Nov 2007 Same old, same old. The modern definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect different results. That's what happened to the Philippine boxing team at the AIBA World Championships. Despite the full support of the Philippine Sports Commission (to the tune of P 1.5 million) and sponsors like Smart, why did only Harry Tanamor make it beyond the quarterfinals and earn a slot in the Beijing Olympics? The cold, hard truth is that the Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines showed little regard for the boxers, whom we have been counting on for decades to bring us ouf first Olympic gold medal. To begin with, the team arrived only two days before the competition, after surviving a 27-hour ordeal from Manila. Given the thirteen-hour time difference, the extreme cold and wind, the boxers would have a devil of a time acclimatizing. Other delegations arrived a week or two before the fights began. Tanamor was more successful because he drew a bye in the first round, and had more time to acclimatize. When Silforbo Lopez fought Velibor Vidic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, his shorts kept falling down. They were extra large. Lopez is a medium. Filipinos in Chicago were appalled, and even offered to buy the whole team uniforms. They had already been feeding the boxers every day. How poor does that make the Philippines look? Another reason Lopez cites for his early exit was the absence of a masseuse. In his last fight, his legs were getting stiff from cold. The team didn't have a nutritionist, either. Neither did it have a psychologist. Quietly, some of the boxers asked their countrymen here to buy them vitamins and supplements. So what were the top officials of the sport doing? ABAP president Manny Lopez as earning a living by sitting as jury with an alleged potential income of thousands of dollars. ABAP secretary-general Roger Fortaleza was refereeing other bouts. And the boxers? Well, they were left to roam the venue, or hopped on the shuttle bus to the training facility on the other side of the University of Illinois-Chicago campus. But perhaps most glaring was the lack of diplomacy or even common courtesy revealed itself when PSC chairman Butch Ramirez himself came to watch our boxers. ABAP did not help the chairman get accreditation. and he was thus forced to line up and buy tickets to get into the gym, until local Filipinos (many from the Filipino-American Police Association of Chicago) took care of it. They were livid. Ramirez was never met by ABAP officials (five Pinoy police officers met him at the airport and escorted him around). Imagine, the person who approves all your funding, the official who head the national government sports program, the one who constantly supports your sport's training and overseas exposure, who shares the goal of winning our country's overdue first Olympic gold medal, and you can't even fill up a form for him to be able to freely enter the venue and cheer for our boxers? What does that say about the NSA's respect for authority? And yet, Ramirez, while he was there, made sure the boxers were fed and had a little extra to keep their spirits up. Ramirez has vowed to review the ABAP's strategy and policies. Needless to say, he was incensed by the poor preparation, lack of coordination, and unwillingness to grant token assistance to the highest sports official in the land, upon whom their financial support rests. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Bill Velasco.  |
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