Cojuangco: PH will end Olympic drought with 5 golds in Tokyo 2020

POC President Peping Cojuangco. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

The Philippines won’t simply end the country’s gold medal drought in the Olympics in the 2020 Tokyo Games. But it’s going to do so in style.

Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose Cojuangco Jr. believes Filipino athletes are capable of winning five gold medals in Tokyo, but only if the country puts up the proper training facilities needed for these athletes to succeed.

“I already have two sure candidates in mind,” said Cojuangco during the thanksgiving mass and dinner party for the Philippine Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games delegation Friday night at V Corporate building in Makati City.

Cojuangco, however, declined to name the athletes and the national sports associations who can make history by delivering the first-ever gold medal for the Philippines in the Olympics.

“I have a strong feeling they can win it. But I don’t want to mention the sport; I don’t want to pressure them,” said the POC chief. “We just have to fuel them up with high-octane gasoline and their performances can translate into gold medals.”

Cojuangco said the athletes are homegrown but hinted that other potential gold medals could also come from swimmers and tracksters based in the United States.

“We need a training center to achieve this. Without a training center, getting those medals will be difficult,” he pointed out.

According to Cojuangco, there’s already a masterplan for the construction of a new sports facility in Clark Green City while the POC is also looking at another site in Iba, Zambales, to put up a training center.

The Philippines could only settle for another silver medal courtesy of weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz in the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Games, 20 years after boxer Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco delivered the last medal for the country with a silver performance in the 1996 Atlanta Games.