Nesthy Petecio still eyeing Olympic boxing gold

Team Philippines’ boxer Nesthy Petecio during the Heroes Parade after the Paris Olympics 2024. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines—Nesthy Petecio is already two-for-two in medal finishes in both her Olympic stints for Team Philippines.

That doesn’t change the fact that she wants more, specifically a gold medal finish–the only color missing from her Summer Games collection.

With that in mind, Petecio is mulling giving it another go in Los Angeles in 2028 in hopes of finally completing her colorful medal haul at the Olympics.

“Ito talaga ‘yong salitang, ‘walang hihinto hangga’t walang into (This is where I could say, I won’t stop without getting the gold),’” said Petecio during a media roundtable with Coins.ph on Tuesday at Asian Century Center in Taguig.

“It’s not obvious when you look at me but every time I read articles, it’s like I want to go one more time (‘Di halata sa’kin pero every time nababasa ko ‘yong articles, para bang gusto ko pa ng isa).”

But the journey this time may be even tougher.  For one, the status of boxing for the 2028 LA Games is in danger, and the fact that Petecio isn’t getting any younger.

By the time the Los Angeles games roll around, Petecio will be 36 years old, quite an age for someone who wants to compete on the biggest sporting stage in the world.

But that doesn’t seem to bother Petecio much, especially with the lessons she learned during her bronze medal run in the Paris Olympics.

READ: Nesthy Petecio glad to help PH women’s boxing gain attention

“That’s what I learned, taking care of my recovery. I wasn’t focusing on my recovery before whenever my games end so if I want to continue with LA in that age, it’ll be hard. We’ll be feeling a lot of things in that age but I want to continue,” bared the 2020 Tokyo Olympian.

“I told my coaches that if they want me to play and continue my dream of playing in LA, we need to take care of my health,” she added

Petecio also said that heading forward, she will be focused on her strength as much as her body recovery, knowing the more she gets older, the slower she would.

“When I was young, I’m always beat in training, I didn’t have much rest because I wasn’t thinking of it, so we’ll be focusing on developing our strength. While we’re getting older, we feel slower so if we focus on strength, at least we’ll still have that.”