PATAFA rules out SEAG stint for Tabal

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) has practically closed the door on marathoner and Rio Olympics veteran Mary Joy Tabal for this year’s Southeast Asian Games.

Philip Ella Juico, the PATAFA president, said the association has given the 27-year-old Tabal enough time to have herself reinstated in the national team gearing up for the SEA Games.

“This has been going on for too long. We’ve given her many chances,” said Juico during a press conference attended by members of the coaching staff and dozens of athletes, including three-time Olympian Marestella Torres Sunang of long jump.

“The PATAFA is doing what is just and what is right. And we’re doing this in fairness to all the other athletes who are working hard and towing the line,” Juico said.

Tabal, who is in Canada, reserved her comments on the issue.

“I was advised not to say something. I am still on my way traveling back to Cebu. Will have a meeting with the team tomorrow,” she said.

Tabal hinted she might try and settle the issue with PATAFA.

“Will try to do it,” she said in a message to The STAR.

The SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur is just around the corner, from Aug. 19 to 31, and yet PATAFA has yet to receive any form of confirmation from the Rio Olympian.

Tabal has gone in and out of the national team that past year or two, and has been competing overseas with the help of her own private sponsor.

After she qualified to the Rio Olympics last year, she needed to be reinstated to the team to make the trip, and after the Olympics, she was once again dropped from the national team.

Juico said they’ve exerted efforts to contact Tabal and work on her reinstatement if she really wanted to be part of the SEA Games team.

“She said she would talk to us. But there was nothing. She said she wanted to be reinstated and compete in the SEA Games? We haven’t heard from her,” said Juico.

Tabal is the country’s top female marathoner, a silver medalist in the 2015 SEA Games. Then she became the first Filipina marathoner to compete in the Olympics.

But it seems that she’d rather do things on her own, and Juico said this is against the rules and regulations of the association.

Over the past month, Tabal was in Tuscany, a region in central Italy, and trained hard for the Scotiabank Ottawa Half-Marathon held in Canada last May 28.