The Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association mapped up its plan for the next year, including the national open championship where all PH team members, including those based abroad, will be required to see action.
Patafa president Philip Juico said the national open will be held March 19 to 21 at newly built Laguna Sports Complex in Sta. Cruz. It will be used as basis for the selection of the national team to the Southeast Asian Games in Singapore in June.
Juico said the Fil-Am athletes will be required to compete to ensure high level of competition. But in case they can’t due to training schedule, the athletes will be asked to submit equivalent results.
The association has also included a seventh member of the national Olympic program in pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena.
The 19-year-old Obiena, who is taking up engineering at University of Santo Tomas, won gold in the Asean University Games in Palembang recently.
Obiena broke the national mark of 5.01 meters held by Edward Lasqueta for 22 years when he leaped 5.05 meters last July during a Patafa meet. He then upped the ante even further when he made 5.20 meters to win the Singapore Open.
Obiena is a second-generation pole vaulter and son of former national athlete Emerson Obiena.
He thus joined six other athletes who made the elite list by the committee composed of Patafa officials led by Juico and sports patron-businessman Jim Lafferty.
Others who made the cut are Fil-Am hurdler Eric Cray, 15-year-old sprinter Zion Corrales-Nelson, middle-distance runner Archand Bagsit, decathlete Jesson Cid, former Asian long jump champion Marestella Torres and Cebuana marathoner Mary Joy Tabal
Juico said the committee is still finalizing the official name of the program which is patterned after the Adopt-An-Olympian project.
The ambitious project will tap corporate sponsors which will fund each athlete P150,000 a month worth of training and competition expenses. The seven athletes will be given the “best coaches, best doctors, best trainers, dieticians” based on the recommendation of the committee.