WEIGHTLIFTING chief Monico Puentevella will lobby for a wild card slot for youthful lifter Vanessa Sarno in the Tokyo Olympic Games on the strength of her superb performance in the Asian Weightlifting Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
“Gusto ko talaga maka-wildcard is Sarno sa Tokyo,” Puentevella, the Samahang Weightlifting ng Pilipinas president, said yesterday in the Philippine Sportswriters Association online Forum.
Sarno, 17, emerged as the toast of the nine-man Philippine contingent in the Asian championships, winning two gold medals and one silver medal in the women’s 71-kilogram division as she made a grand debut in the continental showcase.
This prompted pundits to note that the lifting wunderkind from Tagbilaran, Bohol could be the heir apparent to Rio Olympic silver medalist Hidylin Diaz, who will make her fourth straight trip to the quadrennial meet after finishing fourth in the women’s 55-kg class in the same competition.
Sarno, however, competed in a category that is not an Olympic event so Puentevella said he was taking this initiative similar to what he did to Diaz, who competed at the Summer Games for the first time as a wild card entry in Beijing 13 years ago also at the age of 17.
“I will call up some International Weightlifting Federation officials because we have some people there who can help me (in securing a wild card for Sarno),” explained the former Asian Weightlifting Federation president and IWF director.
“That is how we started Hidylin so you really have to start them young,” he added in the public sports program supported by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., San Miguel Corp., Smart, Milo Amelie Hotel and Braska Restaurant.
“I just hope the Japanese Olympic Games organizers are not too strict so that we can get Sarno a wild card. If she can put up a good fight in Tokyo I have a good feeling she can qualify and make good in the Paris Olympics,” the ex-Bacolod City mayor and congressman said.
To think, Puentevella, added, that “we sent Vanessa to the tournament so she could gain experience from it. Pero palaban ‘yong bata.”
He said that Diaz and her coaching staff would return to their training camp in Malaysia and stay there until Tokyo “so she can focus on her quest to win the elusive gold in the Olympics. Baka maka-tsamba tayo.”
He said he was also working on having Diaz participate in a training camp in Japan prior to her participation in the Olympics.
