Ayala Corp tieup boon for PH athletics

RESURGENT Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (Patafa) has forged a strong partnership with Ayala Corp. beginning with the staging of the National Open from April 7 to 9 at Philsports Complex in Pasig.

Expected to lure about 1,000 athletes from seven countries, including Rio de Janeiro Olympic qualifier Eric Cray and Southeast Asian Games gold medalists Caleb Stuart and Chris Ulboc, the annual competition will now be dubbed the Ayala 2016 Philippine National Open Invitational Championship.

National athletics president Philip Ella Juico said Ayala’s support to athletics will be long-term and will go beyond the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.

“This partnership is broad, very comprehensive, because it covers elite sports and it supports talent identification, going all the way down to the grassroots,” Juico said in yesterday’s PSA Forum at Shakey’s Malate.

“This is also for strengthening the Patafa as an institution.”

Juico was joined in the weekly forum by Stuart and Ulboc, who will both be looking to improve their records in the three-day National Open, where athletes from South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Guam, Brunei and Mongolia are also entered.

“I’ve been training hard during the off season, working on my technique,” said hammer-thrower Stuart.

Ulboc, the SEA Games steeplechase king, hopes to shave a significant time from his personal best of eight minutes and 56 seconds as he chases the Olympic standard of 8:30.

Juico said the Ayala Group hopes the partnership will eventually yield gold medals in the 2019 SEA Games in Manila.

“They (Ayala Group) want to ensure that we do well in the centerpiece event, with athletics having the most number of medals on a stand-alone basis,” said Juico.