Italian conditioning coach tapped for Philippine Asiad tracksters

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) has tapped Italian strength and conditioning coach Carlo Buzzichelli to help whip Filipino bets into top shape in the run-up to the Asian Games in Indonesia and next year’s Southeast Asian Games here.

Buzzichelli, considered one of the foremost strength training experts in the world whose athletes have gone on to win medals in major tournaments like the IAAF World Championships and broken national records, arrived the other night to boost Patafa’s support system for the tracksters.

“He’s known for periodization, he’s the expert there,” Patafa president Philip Ella Juico said, referring to the systematic strength training concept the Italian has mastered. “And he’s the coach of the reigning Olympic female long jump champion, (American) Tianna Bartoletta.”

Buzzichelli, who is also consulting with the Cuban track and field federation, has been visiting the Phl since 2016 conducting seminars in strength and conditioning.

“We got him cheap because he wants to stay in the Philippines. He’s under one-year contract and Ayala is supporting,” said Juico.

“I consider Manila my third home after Italy and Cuba but do love being here. When I was given this opportunity, I was really happy to accept because I already know the environment,” Buzzichelli said.

The objective, he said, is to help Pinoy tracksters improve, though he maintained it would take at least two years to see the full results.

“We’ve to understand that to reach a higher level in any sport, we have to have a long-term plan. The good thing is that I’m seeing the federation putting a serious effort to gather forces to improve the services to the Filipino athlete so that mid-term we’ll have serious impact for all members of the national team,” he said.

“I invite people to hold their expectation at least for a year because in my experience, minimum time to reach a higher level is two years...In two years’ time, we’ll see a very much high-level of performance from Filipino athletes,” he added.

Buzzichelli joins a growing team that now also includes a psychologist and a nutritionist.

“I’m very glad to see this kind of effort from the federation to improve the situation in training, the number of services to the Filipino athlete,” he said.

He noted that the facilities available in the country would suffice for the training they needed.

“I think the facilities here are good enough to produce elite athletes,” Buzzichelli said, noting that Phl facilities are actually better than that of Cuba’s, which has produced world medalists. 

“What we have to do is to provide sensible training, multi-year planning, education for coaches, regular physiotherapy to the athletes, nutrition support and in actuality the federation is moving towards this direction,” he said.