Batang Pinoy champions to form POC pool

A HUGE part of the Philippine Olympic Committee’s elite training pool will come from the Batang Pinoy Games.

POC president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr. said the stars of the BP Games will be named to the pool of as many as 200 athletes which the local Olympic body vowed to organize and train at its own expense.

Cojuangco added that the POC pool is entirely separate from the so-called priority athletes of the Philippine Sports Commission.

The government sports agency had tapped 145 priority athletes, all of them medalists in the 2011 Southeast Asian Games, to train for next year’s biennial competitions in Naypidaw, Myanmar.

“The first group of athletes will come from the Batang Pinoy,” said Cojuangco. “We will then ask athletes from different sports in the national pool to give their full-time commitment to this endeavor.”

According to the POC chief, the young athletes will sign a contract and train under strict monitoring over the next two years at Philsports complex in Pasig City. The athletes will be sent to the 2013 Asian Youth Games in Nanjing, China; 2013 SEA Games, 2014 Youth Olympics in Singapore and 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.

Cojuangco said a United States-based company with vast knowledge in sports science—specifically conditioning and nutrition—has been tapped by the POC and should begin handling the pool in the third week of January next year. June Navarro