GYMNASTICS Association of the Philippines president Cynthia Carrion is offering Corregidor Island as the “perfect” bubble for locally-based Olympic qualifiers and hopefuls eager to return to actual training.
“I am offering Corregidor as a training venue for our Olympic qualifiers and aspirants because the conditions there are ideal,” said Carrion, who heads the government-owned Corregidor Foundation, Inc. that oversees the island, a 45-minute ferry ride from Manila.
“What is nice is that we are totally COVID-19 free,” she noted.
“We have a lot of beds there for men and women, a lot of training ground, even tracks for our skateboarders and no distractions,” she said, adding she has asked national team chief of mission Mariano Araneta Jr. to explore the possibility.
“I have asked Nonong (Araneta) to talk to my staff back in Manila to coordinate this offer,” said Carrion, who is in the United States for a knee surgery.
Araneta said he would consider Carrion’s offer to enable locally-based Olympic qualifiers and hopefuls, who have not had actual workouts since the country went on virtual lockdown in mid-March to limit the spread of COVID-19, to get back into shape.
He added that he will talk to Philippine Sports Commission chairman Butch Ramirez about the offer since the PSC is the government agency in charge of the training of national athletes.
“As part of the requirement set of the Inter-Agency Task Force, these athletes will undergo swab tests before they can enter the bubble,” he said.
Called “The Rock,” by historians, Corregidor was a former US military installation during World War 2 and was the last bastion to fall on May 6, 1942 to imperial Japanese forces before they occupied Manila.
