PSI faces rough ride on gold bid

When the Philippine Sports Institute was initially set in motion nearly a decade ago, it’s ultimate objective was to bring incomparable success for Philippine sports on a global scale.

The goal remains the same to this day although the tasks have become more demanding for the country to snare the elusive gold medal in the Olympics.

“The journey will be rough and difficult, but there is no other time for us to succeed,” said Philippine Sports Commission chair Butch Ramirez during yesterday’s grand launching of the sports institute at Philsports in Pasig City.

The PSI is the game plan of the PSC to build world-class athletes through proper talent identification, high-performance training of elite athletes, sports science and education of both coaches and athletes with the creation of a sports academy.

Once all of these ingredients come together, Ramirez said the country should be ready to excel in the international arena on a consistent basis.

“There are a lot of prescriptions for Philippine sports, but the demand of the times is sports science,” said Ramirez, who tapped strength and conditioning expert Marc Edward Velasco as PSI training director.

Ramirez launched the PSI in 2008 during his first term but was shelved after the next PSC administration took over.