Road to Rio costly for Philippine boxers

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Sports Commission is extending its hand to the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines in its bid to qualify as many boxers to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“We will help ABAP. We have the budget for ABAP,” said PSC chairman Richie Garcia.

But Garcia, this early, wants ABAP to provide the government sports agency an idea how much it would cost to field boxers to the different Olympic qualifiers.

Garcia knows it won’t come cheap.

“Give us the costing. How much do we need for our boxers to qualify? Put a price tag per athlete,” Garcia said in a recent interview.

“Is it P2 million per athlete? Funding is number one for ABAP. We can also look for godfathers,” Garcia asked.

Ricky Vargas, ABAP president, recently sat down with Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose Cojuangco and Garcia to tackle the issue.

Vargas wants an all-out campaign for the Rio Olympics, and according to ABAP executive director Ed Picson, focus is on qualifying boxers.

“Let’s not talk about winning the medal first but qualifying because that’s putting the carriage in front of the horse,” said Picson, tasked to get the ball rolling.

“Because if you don’t qualify then you don’t get to compete and you don’t get the chance. It’s as simple as that. We must qualify our boxers,” he said.

“And ABAP can’t do it alone. We need the help of the PSC and the POC here,” Picson added.

There are several chances for the Filipino boxers to qualify to the 2016 Rio Olympics, starting off with the men’s and women’s Asian Championships in Thailand and China next month.

Then there are the World Championships in Doha in October and the World Series of Boxing and the AIBA Pro Boxing tournaments that also offer slots to Rio, plus an Asiana-Oceania qualifying event later on.

Boxing has provided the glitter to the Philippine campaign in the Olympics with a handful of medals won, the last one, a silver courtesy of Onyok Velasco in 1996 in Atlanta.

But the Philippines has never won the gold.

There’s optimism that it may come in Rio, and the ABAP leadership, which includes chairman Manny V. Pangilinan, will leave no stone unturned.

Even Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino boxing icon, has thrown his support, and sports officials are considering seeking the help of celebrated trainer Freddie Roach. 

The POC president is on the same page.

“To ease the burden on ABAP or the PSC, we can look for godfathers. We can ask private individuals to choose one or two boxers they want to support,” he said.

“It may cost them P200,000 or P300,000 per boxer instead of the PSC and ABAP shouldering the entire P10 million,” Cojuangco said.