Aetas chase OCR national team dream

Gellyann Soria completing the taho carry challenge alongside race participants. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Five Aetas had the opportunity to compete for a spot in the national team pool of the obstacle course racing, which is making its debut in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games hosted by the Philippines.

Gellyann Soria, Ivy Pelayo, Danilo Yugyug, Miracle D. Lansang, and Jacob D. King of Villa Maria Integrated School in Porac, Pampanga all competed in the Elite 5K division of the Allianz OCR, where the podium finishers earned a spot in the training pool, last Sunday at Filinvest Alabang,

Only the 19-year-old Yugyug finished without penalty to make it into the top 15 of the race—composed of 20 obstacles that sure will test one’s endurance—that the top three athletes of the Elite male division hurdled in just half an hour.

But with other qualifier races scheduled this year and an expected boom in the sport’s popularity in the Philippines in the coming years, the Aetas vowed to work harder to improve their performance.

Lansang, for his part, said he will intensify his training for OCR, a sport which he has fallen in love with since first trying it out during the Allianz Conquer Challenge last December in Clark.

Five Aeta youths from the adopted school of Allianz in Porac, Pampanga competed for the 5K Elite races in the recent Allianz OCR Sunday held at Filinvest, Alabang last March 31. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

“Earlier, I was so eager to run and finish the race even though it was hard,” he told INQUIRER.net said in Filipino. “I really want to get the chance to make it to the national team even in the future.”

He prepared for the race using unorthodox training methods like carrying piles of gabi leaves and sacks of coal in their community to build his strength.

But even those strenuous everyday tasks were not enough to fully condition them for the five-kilometer stretch littered with obstacles like taho carry on an uphill terrain, acrylic climbing wall, and all kinds of rig challenges among others.

“I want to train for something harder than the obstacles in the race. In the mountains, we carry gabi and sometimes four sacks of coal, but I need to do something harder. I will try to climb higher rocks in the mountains,” he said.

“I was so eager to run today, but we still lack training and  I still had cramps. It was hard, there were times when I thought I couldn’t do the obstacle but I survived.”

Gellyann Soria conquering another wall obstacle. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Allianz, which is also supporting the Aeta community in Villa Maria in Pampanga, is backing these athletes’ dream to excel in the sport and maybe one day don the country’s colors.

“We are not putting a timetable, but what’s important as of this point is they get the training they need. We are giving them a chance to excel in the sport and the life skills to discover new opportunities along the way,” said Allianz Philippines chief marketing officer Gae Martinez.

After Sunday’s race, Pilipinas Obstalce Sports, the federation for obstacle course racing in the country, has lined up three more qualifiers to determined the roster for the SEA Games, where six medals will be at stake for OCR.