NEXT STOP: Los Angeles Team Phl on board for 2028 Olympic mission

With the 20th Asian Games coming to a close, ranking sports officials are now setting their sights on the next major event: The Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino stressed that preparations for the Summer Games should start as soon as possible in a bid to either match or surpass the country’s impressive haul of two gold and two bronze medals in the previous edition in Paris in 2024.

Tolentino stressed that the achievement of the Filipino athletes in Nagoya should provide some clues on how the national sports associations should prepare for the biggest and most prestigious multi-sport tournament in the world that will be held in Los Angeles for the first time since 1984.

In the recent Asian Games, Carlos Yulo of gymnastics and Ernest John Obiena asserted their claim as the best in Asia while 22-year-old Jeus Yape bannered the national taekwondo squad to a historic performance with one gold, three silvers and a bronze medal.

Also contributing to the Filipinos’ Asian Games harvest of four gold, nine silver and 16 bronze medals were athletes from Olympic sports like 3x3 basketball, archery, weightlifting, gymnastics, athletics and beach volleyball.

The POC chief sports leaders should take the Asian Games performance as a cue in their preparation for the Summer Games.

“So that means that our direction, when we go to LA, is to be more focused on Olympic sports. With this result, the PSC (Philippine Sports Commission) should also be focused on Olympic sports because the LA Olympics is coming up,” said Tolentino, suggesting that the government should go all out in funding the training and foreign exposure of athletes who have good chances of competing in the Summer Games.

“So, what does that mean? Funding of all available qualifying competitions. Fight for it. Don’t save. Foreign coaches. Exposure. That’s what we should focus on.”

“Because we’re talking now about moving forward. We’re talking about the LA Olympics.”

Tolentino and other Filipino achievers like Obiena, Jeus Yape, Tachiana Mangin, Juliana Candelaria and Carlo Paalam are on their way back to Manila at press time after participating in the closing ceremony on Sunday at the Paloma Mizuho Stadium.

PSC chairman Patrick Gregorio also lauded the effort of Filipino athletes, saying that the fact they won a lot of medals in various sports mean that they have what it takes to sustain the momentum they had in the past two editions of the Summer Games in Tokyo and Paris.

The performance in Nagoya edition of the Asiad surpassed the two silvers and 12 bronzes in Hangzhou in 2023 and the two silvers and 15 bronzes in Jakarta 2018 and, more importantly, there were medal milestones in beach volleyball, sepak takraw, karatedo, archery and athletics.