MANILA – From a dismal walk-out marred campaign in the 2007 Thailand Games, the RP boxing team regained its lofty perch by placing second in the recent 2009 Southeast Asian Games in Vientiane, Laos.
The 10-man team brought home five golds, one silver and three bronzes in the 25th edition of the biennial meet. That feat reaffirmed boxing as the country’s best hope for a gold medal in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines officials, led by executive-director Ed Picson, said that it was just the beginning of a tough journey ahead.
The achievement, which made Abap the second top producer of gold medals, behind athletics’s 7-3-4, could be attributed to their long-term program.
However, the new program still needs to be improved by infusing fresh talents and Abap has started identifying new faces in the sport with a new comprehensive nationwide grassroots development competitions.
A lot of talents emerged in the competitions, but Picson said it would really take time before these new discoveries can be maximized to the fullest.
World stage
The absence of deep talents resulted in gains and setbacks by the RP boxing team for this year. After the 32-year-old Harry Ta?amor won the gold in the 2008 World Cup in Moscow, there has been no remarkable achievement in the world stage.
No one in the five-man team made it to the third round of the 2009 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Milan, Italy.
There were many reasons cited for the failure in the AIBA-Italy world sojourn—the most glaring is that most of the world class campaigners this year were the same faces as last year’s.
In fact, among the country’s elite world championship campaigners, only one of them won the gold in Laos Sea Games–22-year-old Charly Suarez in the featherweight class.
The other gold came from the 27-year-old pinweight Bill Vicera, who was not in the Italy tourney. Other winners in Laos were Annie Albania (flyweight), Alice Kate Aparri (lightflyweight) and Josie Gabuco (pinweight).
World Championship veterans and two-time Olympian Harry Ta?amor was only good for silver, while the 28-year-old light welterweight Joegin Ladon could settle only for bronze. The 27-year-old bantamweight Joan Tipon bowed out of contention early in the elimination round.
By the time the London Games come around, Ta?amor would be 34, Ladon, 30, and Tipon, 29.
The Sea Games competition is way below the Olympic standard, so, whatever gains in Laos might not be a gauge on the RP amateur boxing’s readiness for the London Olympiad.
And if boxing is to end the country’s long gold-medal drought in the Olympics, it has to work harder at finding new talents.
