Tac sees Olympic potential in 15-year-old rifle champ

Manila, Philippines - Watch out for that name for if his father, be-medalled Julius Valdez and veteran internationalist Tac Padilla are to be believed, this 15-year-old marksman could give the country its first Olympic gold medal.

And both the elder Valdez and Padilla, a former world junior champion in the rapid fire pistol and standard pistol, have reasons to believe the skinny boy can go places.

After only two years of shifting from taekwondo, his first love, to firing live bullets, the younger Valdez, Padilla’s discovery in his youth development program, has already broken the decades-old national record in the air rifle event.

Valdez’s 595 points in the recent National Open shooting Championships broke the 594-point effort of battle-scarred Emerito “Mae” Concepcion as he came five points short of what could have been a perfect 600-point output.

“Had Jayson fashioned his performance in an International Shooting Federation-sanctioned competition, he could have qualified outright for next year’s London Olympic Games,” Padilla said in yesterday’s SCOOP Sa Kamayan weekly session at the Kamayan Restaurant-Padre Faura.

“This boy has great potential to make it to the Olympics and, who knows, he could win our first ever gold medal ,” Padilla said during the session sponsored by Coca-Cola Export, FILA, TV-5 and UNTV.

To earn the trip to London, Jayson must compete in prestigious tournaments scheduled to earn the needed points for London.

“We should send him, for instance to the coming Southeast Asian Shooting Association championships in Laos in September, the Asian Air Gun championships in Kuwait in October and the Asian Championships in Qatar January next year,” Padilla said.

“We have to take advantage of having a boy as talented as Jayson. He needs exposure and he must get it. It’s a pity if we let go of this chance,” said Padilla, now 47 and the lone shooter to salvage a gold medal in the last Southeast Asian Games in Laos two years ago.

Jayson’s 595-point effort makes Jayson a shoo-in for at least another gold medal in the coming SEAGames in Indonesia.

Ask how preparations for the coming SEA Games have been going, Padilla lamented that like, other sports, shooting has yet to form its team with less than four months left to the Games opening in November.

“The 7-man or 8-man national pool of candidates are, in fact, training on their own at the sub-standard Fort Bonifaciao Range of the Philippine Sports Commission.,” he rued. “Ni wala pang baling dumarating at ang target paubos na.”

Padilla expressed hopes though that the newly-installed Philippine National Shooting Association board, headed by businessman-sportsman MIkee Romero settled down and buckle down to work.

“Tingin ko naman me gagawin, kaya lang baka mahuli na. Yun mismong pag-upgrade ni jayson from developmental pool  di pa nagagawa, Padilla said.“ Kawawa naman yung basta, national open chanmpion na ang liit pa ng allowance dahil nasa development tal pool pa.”

Jayson, for his part, he wants fto surpass his father’s three-old medal winning in the SEA Games even as he vowed to work hard and fulfill his dream of competing and winning gold medal in the Olympics.