Olympic gold a POC priority
POC president Ricky Vargas briefed IOC president Thomas Bach on the prospects of the Philippines bagging its first Olympic gold medal and mentioned three sports where hopes are high during a 45-minute meeting at the IOC office in Lausanne last Wednesday.
The Philippines ranks second to Malaysia in the ranking of countries with the most Olympic medals but no gold. Malaysia has collected 11 medals, seven silver and four bronze, since its Olympic debut in 1964. At the 2016 Rio Games, Malaysia sent 32 athletes and bagged five medals, four silver (three from badminton, one from diving) and one bronze from cycling. In contrast, the Philippines has garnered 10 medals, three silver and seven bronze since joining the Olympics in 1924. In Rio, the Philippines sent 13 athletes and came home with one silver from weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz.
Vargas said he brought up the country’s aspiration to bag the first Olympic gold medal and Bach asked if it could come from boxing. Vargas, concurrently ABAP president, singled out boxing, weightlifting and skateboarding as the possible breakthrough sports.
POC secretary-general Patrick Gregorio, who accompanied Vargas to Lausanne, said the country’s “secret” skateboarder is Marigelyn Arda Didal of Cebu. She recently placed eighth at the Street League Skateboarding Open in London and will compete at the World X Games in Minneapolis on July 16 then at the Asian Games in Indonesia on Aug. 18-Sept. 2. Two other skateboarders in the national pool are Jeff Gonzales and Mark Feliciano. Skateboarding will be introduced as an Olympic medal event in Tokyo in 2020.
“Margie has been training in Hong Kong and London with support from the MVP Sports Foundation,” said Gregorio. “Let’s do this right, we can win in skateboarding.”
Vargas, Gregorio and IOC member Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski also met with Olympic Solidarity head of athletes and head of relations with the Olympic Council of Asia and Asian National Olympic Committees Olivier Niamkey in Lausanne. Olympic Solidarity is a major Olympic program with an annual budget of $509 Million to be distributed to NOCs all over the world for athletes’ development and education, training of coaches and sports administrators and promoting Olympic ideals.
Gregorio said Bach and Niamkey encouraged the POC to actively participate in Olympic Solidarity. “As POC secretarygeneral, I will really look into this as Mr Niamkey even suggested appointing a specific program manager,” said Gregorio. “I will personally study this program.”
In another high-level meeting, the visiting POC delegation conferred with IOC head of institutional relations and governance Jerome Poivey. Two vital issues discussed with Poivey were the eligibility of athletes with dual citizenships and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) protocols.
“Mr. Vargas previously took up WADA matters with Mr. Bach,” said Gregorio. “With Attorney Poivey, we just wanted to put on record that we had a recent WADA incident and we want to help our young national athlete. What’s important is we were able to mention to IOC and emphasized that it’s the first time we’ve encountered a problem and it’s sad because it involved a very young, promising national athlete. On dual citizens, Attorney Poivey cited Rule 41 allowing junior athletes who’ve represented one country to represent another country at the senior level with the consent of the involved NOCs and the International Federation. An example is 16-year-old Fil-Am Jalen Green who has played for the US at the 2017 FIBA U16 Americas Cup. Rule 41 will apply if Jalen transfers to the Philippines as a player at the senior level.”