Pacquiao revives a boxing classic

THE COUNTRY’S boxing icon will brush the dusts off a shelved classic that helped launch his career—this time with the aim of unearthing fighters who can achieve Olympic glory.

Sen. Manny Pacquiao, the world’s only eight-division boxing champion, and the Philippine Sports Commission will revive Go-For-Gold Boxing, local amateur boxing’s most successful grassroots program.

Believing that boxing can win the country’s first gold medal in the Olympics, Pacquiao bared that he was a product of the famed Go-For-Gold, the program of the old Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines that catapulted him to national fame.

“The Chairman (PSC chief William “Butch” Ramirez) and I have been talking about reviving the program,” Pacquiao said in Filipino during the consultative meeting organized by the PSC yesterday among top sports leaders at Century Park Hotel.

Go-For-Gold was the brainchild of former Abap leader Mel Lopez and his son Manny.

It was shelved when the group of tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan took over the leadership of the boxing association in 2009.

“I fought there a couple of times before I turned pro,” said Pacquiao. “I remember that we produced a lot of boxing talents in Go-For-Gold.”

Boxers who fought at Go-For-Gold represented their town, club, city or province in an Olympic-style competition.

The winners in the regional tournaments reached the national finals where they went on to join the national pool.