Two Fil-Am cylists get Olympic boost

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines’ bid to send more athletes to the 2012 London Olympics got a boost when the US Olympic Committee granted permission to Filipino-American cyclists Alexis Vergara and Daniel Caluag to represent the country in international competitions leading to the Games.

At the same time, the Usoc, in a letter sent to Philcycling president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino and Philippine Olympic Committee secretary general Stephen Hontiveros recently, noted that the USA Cycling has also given its approval for the two BMX riders to compete under a Philippine UCI license.

With the assurances, Tolentino, the mayor of Tagaytay City, will field Vergara and Caluag to the Asian BMX Championship, a qualifier for the Olympics, slated in Hong Kong on March 3.

Tolentino had requested for the clarification of the status of Vergara and Caluag to avoid a repetition of the incident in last November’s Palembang Southeast Asian Games, where Vergara and Daniel Caluag were barred from competing in the West Java cycling event because they held dual UCI licenses from both the US and the Philippines.

What irked Tolentino then was the fact that Vergara, once ranked ninth in the US Elite Pro Tour, and Caluag, a four-time BMX national No. 1 BMX pro, were already on the entry list of cycling a day before their events.

According to Tolentino, the real reason for their disqualification was because they did well during the trial runs and were gold medal threats.