8 bets earn trip to Youth Olympics

MANILA, Philippines - Eight athletes, representing four sports – swimming, basketball, taekwondo and weightlifting – will have the distinction of carrying the country’s colors in the First Youth Olympic Games scheduled Aug. 14-26 in Singapore.

Swimming president Mark Joseph, the national delegation chef de mission to the Games for boys and girls athletes aged 14-18 yesterday announced that the eight – four in FIBA 33 (three-on-three), two in swimming and one each in taekwondo and weightlifting – are the only once who survived the stiff qualifying competitions held in the 26 Olympic sports on the rundown to the Singapore Games.

They are cagers Michael Tolomia, Ray Bobby Parks, Jerone Teng and Michael Pate, swimmers Jasmin Alkhaldi and Jessie King Lacuna, jin Leigh Nuguid and lifter Patricia Llena.

“These athletes earned their slots in the Games. None of them earned the trip by passing in the wild card selection process,” he said. “Unfortunately, they will be in Singapore not under the International Olympic Committee’s principle on universality giving each member country four automatic slots.”

“Fortunately though, they merited the trip on the strength of the Philippines’ having nine qualifiers each in the Athens and Beijing Olympic Games. Meaning the country is classified under the more advanced country in the Olympic movement,” he explained during the SCOOP Sa Kamayan weekly session.

Joseph said Alkhaldi and Lacuna will be vying for medals in the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle and the 100m butterfly for girls and boys, respectively.

Nuguid will be the country’s bet in girls 44-kilogram category in taekwondo, while Llena in the girls 63-kg class in weightlifting.

The country’s bets in athletics, boxing, fencing, shooting and archery were not as lucky though to pass the stringent qualifying standard in their respective events at the time the deadline to make it last June 21.

“There will be no more changes in the lineup after the deadline except when someone suffers injury from now until the opening day, “ Joseph said. “But once competitions had started, no one can be substituted even if he or she is injured in the course of competition proper.”

The athletes will be accompanied by a coach in each sport.

The YOG, Joseph said, is the only third Games sanctioned by the IOC, the other two being the quadrennial Summer Games and the Winter Games. It took the IOC 90 years to come up with the Youth Olympic Games following inaugural staging of the Winter Games in 1920.

The YOG, besides giving the youth the avenue to strut their wares in their sports, Joseph added, is the IOC’s way of inculcating in their minds the real spirit of the Olympics – competition, victory, values, spirit and culture.

“The spirit that Olympics is not only winning but how competitors participate is the one being restored in the Youth Olympic Games,” he stressed. “That participation is not measured on how medals are won but how the games were played.”