Juico pursues Olympic dream despite debacle

MANILA, Philippines - Former Philippine Sports Commission chairman and current track and field association president Philip Ella Juico is putting behind the failed bid of lone gold medal hopeful Marestella Torres, saying the new leadership of the association will continue efforts to pursue a gold medal in the 2016 Olympics for her and 15 others under the “Adopt an Olympian” program.

Juico made the announcement following the disqualification of Torres, the long jump queen of the Southeast Asian Games in 2009 and the Asian Championships in 2011, a day earlier in the long jump event of the athletic competition at the National Main Stadium.

“Sports has a lot of surprises,” said Juico, saying Torres could have won the gold medal if she approximated her jump of 6.71m  in the 2011 SEA Games.

She wasn’t given a score for the fouls.

Londa Maria Natalia of Indonesia made the winning jump of 6.55m, followed by Bui Thi Thu Thao of Vietnam (6.44) and China’s Jiang Yanfel (6.29).

“This is one Asian Games where the bronze medalist of the SEA Games (the Vietnamese) was a silver medal winner,” said Juico. “You can never tell the outcome of the events. We call it the breaks of the game.”

Torres met the Asian Games qualifying criterion of the Philippine Olympic Committee with a 6.45m long jump in winning the gold in the Singapore Open last August, barely a month before the Asian Games and six months after she gave birth to her first child.

Torres mistimed her approach and stepped on the foul line, not once but thrice in as many attempts, and was not included in the eight-member final in the event.

Her feat could have been sufficient to win the silver here.

In other final events Monday, Christopher Ulboc, who also qualified for the Asian Games from the Singapore Open, finished ninth and last in the 3,000 steeplechase 

Despite the “no mark” on her jump, Torres remains as one of two who will continue to receive a monthly training allowance of P117,000 from private donors who have committed to Juico’s Olympic bid.

Jason Cid, who is competing in the ongoing decathlon, is the other athlete on the “Adopt and Olympian” program of the track and field association.

Here to gain exposure competing with the best in Asia, Cid was running eighth among 10 athletes in the demanding field of decathlon.

Juico said the training allowance is on top of stipends, foreign training and other expenses they may get from the Philippine Sports Commission.

Juico said 17 athletes are being considered for the program which is funded by Jim Lafferty from his personal funds and those from the private sector. 

Juico, who took over the reins of the track and field association following the retirement of long-time president Go Teng Kok, wanted to start all over again by focusing on young, promising athletes who will be joined by veteran athletes under a program that funded entirely by private sponsors.

James Lafferty and his wife have committed themselves to Juico’s “Adopt an Olympian” program by securing sponsors funds, aside from their own, to keep the program going until the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.