Eumir Marcial —INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Eumir Felix Marcial admitted that Olympic training away from his family took a heavy toll on him.
That’s why instead of joining the rest of the Philippine boxing team inside a bubble in Thailand, he chose to go back to his hometown Zamboanga City.
But while he claimed being home enabled him to “recharge” mentally—something that escaped him when he was in the United States for seven months—he can’t help but throw shade at the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).
Without singling out the PSC, Marcial said he has not received financial support from the government while he was training in Los Angeles under the watch of Team Pacquiao, which was laying out his pro career.
“I’m tired of telling them what I need,” Marcial, speaking in Filipino, told Radyo Singko 92.3 FM. “I really don’t want to speak anymore about the issue because I want to just focus on my Olympic training. They are just distractions to me.”
It came two days after PSC chair Butch Ramirez hammered on “character building” among athletes as better end result than medals.
Marcial said the PSC failed to bankroll his US trip, unlike fellow Olympic qualifiers Hidilyn Diaz, Ernest John Obiena and Carlos Yulo, who are all training abroad under the PSC tab.
PSC executive director Guillermo Iroy said they didn’t finance his US trip because it was not endorsed by the Alliance of Boxing Association of the Philippines (Abap). Abap had earlier ordered him to train in a bubble in Calamba, Laguna province and the Bangkok training camp.
Abap disagreed with his decision not to go to Thailand, but Marcial said if he joined the trip he won’t be able to see his family up until after the Tokyo Games.
While he was in the United States, Marcial lost his brother and his father got sick. “I know that coming home will help me with my mental conditioning. I already got the physical conditioning while I was in the States,” he added.
Still, Iroy said the PSC didn’t stop giving him his monthly allowance of P43,000. He also reportedly gets P30,000 monthly as an enlisted personnel of the Philippine Air Force. INQ