Paris 2024 long-term goal of Christian Tio

BUENOS AIRES – At 17, Filipino kiteboarder Christian Tio dreams of making it to the Summer Olympics and winning the elusive gold for the Philippines.

But Tio, who could be the next poster boy of Philippine sports, will have to wait a while.

“In 2020 (Tokyo Olympics), we don’t have it. But we’ll have it in 2024 in Paris. I have six years to prepare. I’d be 23 or 24 then,” said Tio, a silver medalist in the Youth Olympics here.

The native of Boracay has been walking around the past few days here in his Team Philippines jacket – his silver medal deep in his pocket.

“It’s just sinking in now,” he said.

Tio is eligible to receive a P2.5 million cash incentive from the Philippine Sports Commission. But he never spoke of the money.

All he wants now is to come home to Boracay and inspire more Filipinos to get into kiteboarding, an adrenaline sport, which he took up 10 years ago.

“It was my mother (Liezle) who introduced me to the sport because I was never outside the house. She wanted me to go out,” said Tio.

His mother owns and operates a steak house in Boracay. His Norwegian father, who used to coach him, passed away in 2016.

Tio was mum about the recent developments in the island paradise of Boracay, which underwent a six-month closure.

“But it affected me because I couldn’t kite. They wouldn’t allow water sports so I didn’t have a place to train. I had to go elsewhere,” he said.

Elsewhere was Caliraya in Laguna or Thailand or Spain and South America.

Even before he was 10, Tio had gone out in the waters longer than what her mother had wanted, and off he went competing overseas.

Tio has found generous sponsors and used them to further hone his skills against the world’s best.

He’s had two runner-up finishes in the Junior World Kiteboarding Championships in Spain, and had gotten so used to competing against older kiters.

To train for this YOG, he spent four weeks in the Dominican Republic, where the gold medalist last Sunday, hails from.

He’s hoping that more Filipinos would take up the sport.

“I hope they will. We have so many islands. We can kite in them,” he said.