Pinoy pugs to Colorado Springs?

MANILA, Philippines - Olympic boxers Rogen Ladon and Charly Suarez may end up working out at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs if ABAP executive director Ed Picson is able to arrange the visit in the last stage of preparations before leaving for Rio.

Picson said yesterday the invitation to check out the Colorado Springs facility was made by US women’s head coach Billy Walsh and conditioning coach Matthew Johnson during the recent AIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Baku, Azerbaijan.  

Ladon and Suarez flew to Las Vegas two weeks ago to train at the Top Rank Gym with ABAP head coach Pat Gaspi and consultant Dodong Donaire.  Two more coaches Boy Velasco and Romeo Brin will leave Manila tonight to join the team.  Picson said if the Rio organizers agree to accredit two coaches, Velasco and Brin will be tapped for the job.  If only one coach is allowed, Velasco will make the trip.

POC first vice president and the country’s Olympic chef de mission Joey Romasanta said the other day he has asked for clarification on the provision of boxing coaches from William Souza of the Rio sports entries department and Anna Adobati, head of the cluster group where the Philippines is classified. Romasanta said he took up the matter at a recent delegation heads’ meeting in Bangkok and was informed that for two boxers, the allocation is only one coach.

Romasanta said the Olympic computer system will not recognize an entry form if more than one coach is listed for two boxers.  He said even for four boxers, the provision is one coach.  Different coaches, however, are provided for males and females.  

Picson said AIBA allows up to three coaches to work the corner of a boxer in a competition.  “I’ve asked AIBA to rule on the matter but I was advised to go to our National Olympic Committee which issues credentials for Rio,” said Picson.  A boxer usually has a coach and a second in his corner for every fight, sometimes a third comes in as a cutman.  “I hope this can be verified right away,” said Picson.  “It will be demoralizing for our team, both for the coach who’s going and the coach who’s left behind, not to mention the boxers.  But if that’s the rule, what can we do?”

Romasanta said the POC has no discretion in issuing credentials.  “We just follow what is the Olympic protocol,” he said.  “This is the Olympics, not the Asian or Southeast Asian Games.  The POC has no control over this issue.  What we can do is to ask for clarification or we can explain our situation to justify an additional coach.”

Picson said Velasco and Brin were tied up in Azerbaijan so they couldn’t leave for Las Vegas with the boxers.  In their place, Picson designated Gaspi to work with Donaire in training the boxers.   

“I get regular reports from Dodong,” said Picson.  “The boxers are training hard, sparring, doing drills.  They’ll be in peak condition for Rio.  We’re considering Colorado Springs because several national teams, including Australia, are training there and we’ll definitely get good sparring.  We’re also looking at training in the East Coast.  I’ve talked to the US boxing coaches and they agreed sparring in the West Coast is different from sparring in the East Coast.  The West Coast boxers are more into the Mexican style of coming forward while the East Coast boxers are more into movement, influenced by African-Americans.”

In Azerbaijan, Filipino bets Ian Clark Bautista and Eumir Marcial bombed out in their first outings.  Bautista lost a 3-0 decision to Spain’s Jose Kelvin de la Nieve who exited in his next fight and also didn’t qualify for Rio. Marcial, the top seed, lost a 2-1 verdict to Germany’s Abbas Baraou who was ousted by Hungary’s Imre Bacskai before the medal round.  Of 39 tickets to Rio available in Baku, nine were claimed by Asian boxers – two from India and one each from China, Chinese-Taipei, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Only 31 slots are left for grabs in Olympic boxing with 26 to be awarded at the AIBA Pro Boxing/World Series of Boxing (APB/WSB) Qualifying Tournament in Vargas, Venezuela, on July 3-8.  Five tickets will be given via the Tripartite Commission Invitation (TCI) or wildcard route.  The Philippines has only two APB/WSB licensed boxers, Suarez and Mark Anthony Barriga. Suarez has already qualified for Rio while Barriga left the ABAP pool to turn pro.  So the Philippines will not be represented in the final qualifying tournament in Venezuela.

Five countries have qualified 10 boxers in 10 men’s weight divisions – Azerbaijan, Cuba, UK, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.  France and Russia qualified nine each, China eight and the US six.  India and Thailand have three each and Japan two like the Philippines.

The US signed up Walsh, a 1988 Olympic boxer from Ireland, to boost its chances for an Olympic medal in boxing.   Walsh is credited for delivering seven boxing medals for Ireland in the last two Olympics while the US hasn’t bagged a medal since heavyweight Deontay Wilder’s bronze in 2008. For Rio, the US has qualified six boxers, including two women, and is hoping to add three more through the APB/WSB tournament.

 At Colorado Springs, sports scientists developed a system of charting a boxer’s ability to hit hard, to take punches and to increase his work rate per round through small, lightweight, wireless motion sensors.  Picson said the visit to Colorado Springs could be the last leg of training for Ladon and Suarez before taking off for Rio either on July 26 or 27.