Pinoy pugs taper off for big fight

Ninth of a series

Athens (Via Globe Telecom) — The Filipino boxers came in early to this ancient city to acclimatize further for the tough grind ahead and soak in the Olympic atmosphere only to find the gates of the athletes village locked on them.

Apparently, the four fighters — Harry Tañamor, Violito Payla, Romeo Brin and Chris Camat and their coaches came in way ahead of schedule of the rest of the compact Philippine contingent and were not allowed inside the RP camp and had to stay in a rented house for a few days until the first batch had came in from Manila.

It was the only glitch, so to speak, in their tremendous buildup for the mission at hand.

"They went back into training in the village, did gym work and now in the process of tapering off. They’re in high spirits, high morale and in perfect condition.

They’re ready to go," said boxing chief Manny Lopez, the Asian boxing secretary general.

The Pinoy pugs, the best Olympic medal producer with five of the country’s nine in the Games since 1928 in Amsterdam, resume their mission to nail the elusive gold medal and break an 80-year drought for the nation.

They will go into the cauldron of world-class opposition beginning Saturday at the Persiteri boxing hall.

And it put into severe test an audacious and ambitious gambit for the gold as the boxers veered away from the traditional ranking tournaments to prepare for the games in favor of intense and rigorous stints in two training camps in Bulgaria and France.

Filipino fighters virtually toured the world for six months and went on to establish a base in Cuba, the paramount force in Olympic boxing, in 1996 and earned one of the country’s two silver medals in Atlanta through flyweight Mansueto Velasco Jr.

Four years ago a team of RP boxers stayed and trained for three months in Sydney but simply didn’t have the breaks during the 2000 Games and failed to medal for the first time in 18 years.

"Somehow there seems to be some kind of a downside on long drawn preparations abroad. We don’t seem to achieve a real mental toughness, na-homesick sila, they miss their families on top of enduring the pressure of fighting for the country," said Lopez.

They tried a new approach this time, going into serious training in two European camps.

The Filipino fighters were only allowed to compete two highly rated tournaments in the year—the Asian qualifiers for Athens in Palawan, Guangzhou, China and Karachi, Pakistan and the Usti nad Labem slugfest in the Czech Republic—where Tañamor won a silver and Payla and Brin the bronze.

Then they pitched camp in Bulgaria, in a place called Plovdiv, some 200 kilometers from Sofia. They worked out with Bulgarian national champions while their coaches shared technical expertise with the Filipino mentors.

"We were able to gain the needed physical conditioning, particularly in the building up our strength and stamina in preparation for the next phase of our training in France," Lopez said.

They also experienced the kind of temperature and conditions that might prevail in Athens during the Games, since Plovdiv was only one hour away from Athens, next to Macedonia in the north of Greece.

From there, they went to Bugeat, France and completed three weeks of another rigorous grind, sparring with some of the best fighters from 12 nations, including Cuba, Australia, Germany, France, Poland and Romania.

"Training in France more than made up for all the overseas competitions we would have participated in the run-up to the Olympics and meeting these top class boxers enabled us to gauge our strength and ability, " he said.

But the road to the gold in Athens is literally littered with landmines. For one, the legendary Cuba coach Alcides Sagarra has vowed to sweep all 11 golds staked in boxing and for the other, nations like Russia and Kazakhstan are now a force to reckon with.

Still, the four Filipinos are ready to challenge for the ultimate glory in the sport with Tañamor, two-time bronze medalist in Thailand and in Ireland last year, being seeded for the bronze.

"Harry really deserves the recognition. He is one of our best bets to go all the way to the medal bouts," said Lopez.

Tañamor, who had won here in the 2002 Acropolis Cup and the silver medallist in the Busan Asian Games, is raring to slug it out with the likes of Cuban champion Yan Varelan Bartelemi, world titlist Sergei Kazakov and Zou Shiming, a talented reed-thin Chinese youth.

"Nagagawa na namin ang lahat sa preparasyon at handa na kaming lumaban. With God’s help, sana matamo natin ang ating minimithing ginto," said Lopez.