Eumir Marcial will be spending 21 days at the United States boxing team’s high-altitude training headquarters in Colorado Springs as part of his final buildup for the Tokyo Olympics.
Marcial will be joined there by Gerson Nietes, the handpicked coach of the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP), who arrived in Los Angeles from Manila over the weekend.
The two are flying to Colorado Wednesday and they expect to solve the problems Marcial encountered when he competed in the Asian championships in Dubai last month.
“We will work on it,” Nietes told Daily Tribune after presiding over Marcial’s roadwork at the Pan Pacific Park on 3rd Street where Manny Pacquiao holds his own morning run thrice weekly while getting ready to fight.
Even Pacquiao, who had high hopes for his fellow lefty, was a bit dismayed that Marcial blew into the Dubai slugfest lacking quality training.
But Nietes believes their stay at the Colorado Springs camp, which is more than 6,000 feet above sea level (1.6 kilometers), will make up for that lackadaisical showing.
From Colorado, it hasn’t been decided where Marcial will spend his final days before leaving for Tokyo.
Sean Gibbons, whose MP Promotions has Marcial under contract as a pro, told this paper that returning to the Philippines is out of the question following the Colorado camp. “He will come to LA or go directly to Tokyo,” Gibbons added.
Before campaigning in the Asian tournament, Marcial figured in a spat with the ABAP and the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), outfits that the Zamboanga puncher said were not supportive of his Olympic gold medal quest.
Later on, Marcial posted on his social media account his expression of appreciation and thanks to the efforts made by the ABAP and the PSC.
