Team Phl puts YOG medal bid in motion

DAKAR — The nine-member Team Philippines put its medal quest in motion starting Saturday as the curtain rises on the 4th Youth Olympic Games under a “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates” theme that will see athletes aged 15 to 17 years old vying for honors in the next 14 days.

It will be tough, according to Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, who has done the rounds with his secretary-general, lawyer Wharton Chan, since arriving in this West African country last Wednesday.

“They’re big and they look strong,” said Tolentino of the American and European athletes who are already in town ahead of Saturday’s two-hour Opening Ceremony set at the 55,000-seat Stade Abdoulaye Wade in Diamniadio, a new city about 30 kilometers from Dakar.

“It will be very difficult,” added Tolentino who welcomed on Thursday night here the first batch of Filipinos exhausted from their 30-hour flight from Manila via Istanbul at the Blaise Diagne International Airport also located in Diamniadio.

“So it’s good luck to our athletes, although I’m sure they prepared hard for this once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Tolentino added.

Unlike in the Summer Games where the Filipino athletes’ stock now belong to the world’s elite, the YOG has yet to produce the country’s best and brightest potentials who would someday become another Hidiyln Diaz-Naranjo or a Carlos Yulo.