UAAP eyes February return, training resumption soon

MANILA, Philippines—The UAAP could be back in action early next year as the league is targeting a return in February, for basketball at least.

UAAP President Nonong Calanog said the league is currently waiting for the approval from the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases to allow student-athletes to get back to training.

De La Salle’s athletic director said the UAAP is also eyeing to start the volleyball tournaments after Holy Week.

Calanog added that all of the UAAP’s basketball and volleyball players are fully inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

“As far as the board is concerned, our timeline hopefully depending on the approval for return to training we’re projecting a start for basketball by February but that will depend on when we’ll be able to get our athletes back to training because we want to make sure they are ready for competition by that time,” said Calanog Wednesday during a press conference with the Commission on Higher Education.

“We’’ll take it as it comes and base it on the number of months available for us to train. As of now, our projection is to return to competition by mid-February 2022 for basketball.”

Calanog said he hopes the IATF would allow the UAAP to hold training sessions for the basketball teams starting November 1, which would allow the players to get into game shape by February.

UAAP Season 82 managed to finish its first semester sports but was cut short in the early part of the second semester due COVID-19. The league decided not to push through with the 83rd season still due to the pandemic.