FANTASTIC FIVE

The Philippine boxing team believes all five boxers will be bringing home medals once the Paris Olympics is done.

National team head coach Ronald Chavez said that he likes the Filipinos chances in the Olympics that they promised Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines chief Robert Puno and chairman Ricky Vargas that all of the boxers will land a podium finish.

The Filipino pugs just came from a fruitful stint in the 2nd World Olympic Qualifying Tournament at the Indoor Stadium Huamark in Bangkok over the weekend as Hergie Bacyadan and Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Carlo Paalam captured slots for the Summer Games in the women’s 75-kilogram division and men’s 57-kg division, respectively.

“What’s important is what our chairman Ricky Vargas and our president said: ‘We believe that hard work is worth everything.’ They are always there to support us and for us, our promise is strong,” Chavez said.

“We have been watching these five qualified boxers and if we get lucky, all of them will get medals. I will not say the colors, but we are sure they will deliver for the country.”

Boxing is expected to be one of the top bets to bring home medals in the Paris Olympics.

In fact, the Filipino pugs make up a third of the 15-man delegation as the country also celebrates its centennial anniversary of participating in the Summer Games.

Out of the 14 medals the Philippines got in the Olympics, eight of them came from boxing.

Currently, the boxers are in Baguio City as they get ready to leave for Saarbrücken, Germany for the final training camp.

Tokyo Games bronze medalist Eumir Marcial, meanwhile, will remain in the United States and will regroup with the national team in Germany.

“Eumir will not return here in the Philippines because he has no sparring partner here.”

Paalam and Bacyadan will be joined by Marcial, Aira Villegas and Nesthy Petecio in the delegation, boxing’s biggest since the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Chavez said since the German training camp will have other countries joining them, there is no need for them to worry about getting scouted since their matches are posted online.

He also said these boxers also participated in the US training camp as well last April.

“At this time, you can’t hide them because there are YouTube channels. So you don’t need to hide them because all of them are easy to find now,” Chavez said.