Eight Fil-Ams to spice up nat’l trackfest

When this year’s National Open Track and Field Championships are held May 31 to June 3 at the Rizal Memorial Stadium, there will be eight fresh, promising faces that might just be worth watching.

The Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) yesterday said eight Fil-American athletes are due for the said competition in the hope of discovering potential winners that could serve the country in future international competitions.

They are Gary Gableza, Kassius Tirona, Bryan Bumanlag, Deborah Samson, Rose Supangan, Verna Bansio, Gerlyn Kiamco and Krizia Apelar.

Their participation in the annual trackfest was made possible by the Philippine Overseas Olympic Development Committee (POODC), a non-profit organization that was recently launched in Los Angeles, California.

"This new Fil-American sports organization is similar to the one that was organized several years ago. And it produced the likes of Eduard Lasquete and David Bunevacz," said POC spokesman Gus Villanueva who bared the names to mediamen.

The LA-based organization aims to discover and identify Fil-American talents who will then be trained and developed by the government. This could come in time for the 23rd Southeast Asian Games which the country is hosting next November.

Lasquete eventually won the gold medal in pole vault competition of the 1995 Chiang Mai SEA Games while Bunevacz bagged the silver in the javelin throw of the 1997 Jakarta SEA Games.

The eight Fil-Americans, along with the country’s top tracksters like Eduardo Buenavista and Lerma Bulauitan, will compete against runners from Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Sri Lanca, Macau, India and Chinese-Taipei.