Patafa firms up talent pool

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association will pick 20 young prospects to train for six months initially for the 2019 Southeast Asian Youth Championships but also to eventually complement the national team’s talent base leading to next year’s SEA Games.

Patafa president Philip Ella Juico said the promising youth tracksters will be carrying the fight for the country in the SEA Youth meet hosted by Isabela in March 2019 and some of them may graduate into the elite level and compete in the SEAG on home soil.

“For the first time, we’re forming a youth team. Wala namang youth team dito, ang ginagawa lang ng PSC is popondohan nila ang trip, ang exposure pero yung training before, wala (Under the present set-up, there’s really no youth team and the Philippine Sports Commission is just funding their trips and exposure but not their pre-tournament training). So we’ve gotten as youth team manager Terry Capistrano of La Salle and we’ll start forming the team in September,” said Juico.

“They will be training for six months all the way up to March. We’re choosing about 20 youth athletes and again, itong youth, papasok din sa SEA Games iyan, so medium, intermediate planning dito and we’re going to bring in all the ingredients necessary using Vermosa as hub,” he added.

The athletics association is also expanding its support system for the Phl team, hiring Italian sports and conditioning expert Carlo Buzzichelli, sports psychologist Naira Orbeta and nutritionist Sanirose Orbeta to give American sprint and hurdle coach Roshan Griffin and local mentors a helping hand in whipping the Pinoy tracksters into shape.

Patafa’s goal in the 2019 SEAG, according to Juico, is set at 13 gold medals. 

“Right after the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta (in August and September), we start our preparations for the SEA Games. This is going to be over a year and we want to do our best to approximate or even surpass the 13 gold medals we won in the Manila SEA Games several years ago during the time of Lydia de Vega, Isidro del Prado and Nonoy Unso, with the help of Ayala and other sponsors,” he said.