MANILA, Philippines — After consulting with various NSAs, the Philippine Sports Commission has come up with a list of at least 18 sports where the country has a chance to qualify or has already qualified for the Tokyo Olympics next year with the view of transforming the PhilSports complex into an isolated hub for focused training.
PSC chief of staff and Philippine Sports Institute national training director Marc Velasco said yesterday about 80 athletes were identified as either Olympic qualifiers or hopefuls and some 20 are abroad honing their skills. He said 50 to 60 of the roughly 80 athletes are in the country and it’s PSC’s goal to gather them in the PhilSports complex for training. The sports in the PSC’s list are archery, athletics, aquatics (swimming), cycling, golf, gymnastics, judo, triathlon, weightlifting, boxing, canoe/kayak, karate, fencing, rowing, skateboard, table tennis, taekwondo and wrestling.
Velasco said it isn’t exactly a “bubble” that the PSC plans to create. “The bubble has a short-term connotation, like for a tournament,” he said. “At PhilSports, we want to get our athletes into a situation where they can train for the Olympics with health and safety protocols in place. Ideally, we’d like the athletes to stay in. Once they report, we’ll do swab testing and impose quarantine in an isolation wing. The testing will be done from time to time. We expect movement in and out of the complex because of food deliveries, cleaning, interaction with PTs and others. The PSC was involved in formulating the health and safety protocols for training camps with DOH and IATF so we’re familiar with what has to be done.”
The timetable is to set up the PhilSports hub within two weeks. But Velasco said there are challenges along the way. “Right now, our athletes are all over the country, back in their home provinces,” he said. “Inland transportation may not be too much of a problem but arranging flights or boat rides is a challenge. We’d like everyone to check in about the same time and hopefully, it could be done maybe in the next few weeks. At the moment, we’re looking at six multi-purpose venues where the athletes could train in the complex. The fencing hall, for instance, could be split in half with another sport like table tennis. We’re mapping out engineering protocols, detailing where to put wash basins, shoe cleaning mats and sitting or resting areas. We’re also concerned about the psychological impact this will make on our athletes so we’ll carefully monitor the mental aspect as we go along. We’ve been busy preparing PhilSports for our athletes.”