Pep rally for PH athletes up at Rizal diamond

The Philippines’ past international sporting heroes gather together on Tuesday in a pep rally to boost the morale of a new PH delegation seeking to reclaim the overall title in the Southeast Asian Games later this year.

A grand pep rally for the athletes called GoPilipinasGo will be held at Rizal Memorial Baseball Field in Manila with Philippine Sports Commission Chair Butch Ramirez and members of the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) joining the former national athletes.

The 30th SEA Games is scheduled Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 in Clark, Subic, Metro Manila and Tagaytay City, the fourth time that the Philippines will host the 11-nation meet.

Filipino sports icons such as boxing siblings Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco and Roel Velasco, swimmers Eric Buhain and Akiko Thomson-Guevara, tracksters Lydia De Vega and Elma Muros-Posadas have been invited to lend star power to the event and inspire the latest generation of national athletes.

Also expected to be in attendance are bowling Hall-of-Famers Paeng Nepomuceno and Bong Coo together with taekwondo greats Monsour del Rosario, Stephen Fernandez and Bea Lucero.

The Philippines hosted the Games in 1981, 1991 and in 2005 when the country first won the overall title and some of the gold medalists in those editions will cheer the Filipino athletes set to compete in 524 events from 56 sports come November.