INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines ? The best man for the job ? winning that elusive first Olympic gold medal ? just might be a woman.

Amateur boxing officials said the country?s chances of claiming the highest Olympic honor has doubled with the inclusion of women?s boxing in the London Summer Games in 2012.

?We take that as a great news,? said Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines executive director Ed Picson. ?All along we were supporting that move to include women?s boxing in the Olympics.?

Mansueto ?Onyok? Velasco in 1996 and Anthony Villanueva in 1964 came close to winning gold in their respective divisions, but Picson said the women?s team could go all the way.

?That can very well be the case because we have done well in the sport, and our women boxers are recognized around the world as a formidable team,? added Picson.

The RP lady boxers grabbed four of the five gold medals at stake when the sport was introduced in the 2005 Southeast Asian Games. The winners were flyweight , pinweight Alice Kate Aparri, bantamweight Jouvilet Chilem and lightweight Mitchel Martinez.

Albania delivered the lone gold for the RP boxing team in the 2007 SEA Games in Thailand.

Picson said that they would try to work out an agreement with the Philippine Sports Commission to send the women?s boxers to China for training before the Laos SEA Games.

?We feel that it?s another opportunity to fare better in international tournaments and perhaps get our first Olympic gold medal,? he said.

Reports said the International Olympic Committee has decided to include three weight categories for women boxers in the London Games ? flyweight, lightweight and middleweight.

Villanueva dropped the featherweight gold to Soviet Union?s Stanislav Stepashkin in the 1964 Tokyo Games. Thirty two years later, Velasco fell to Bulgaria?s Daniel Boujilov in their light flyweight championship fight in Atlanta.