WHETHER she has a Philippine passport or not, Victoria Bossong is keen on competing in the women’s 800-meter run tomorrow in the ICTSI Philippine Athletics Championships at the Philsports track oval in Pasig City.
“Yes, I intend to compete in the 800-meter run whether I have a Philippine passport or not on Saturday,” said Bossong, who arrived at 2:30 a.m. yesterday after a 17-hour flight from the US and was introduced with the rest of the athletes backed by FilAm Sports at the Philsports Arena conference room in Pasig City.
Accompanied by dentist-mother Annie Atienza Bossong, who was born in Puerto Galera, Mindoro, the 20-year-old athlete reiterated her intention to run for flag and country in the Paris Olympic Games.
To demonstrate that, Bossong, a track star of the Ivy League University where she is taking up a degree in Neuro Science, even sang the Philippine national anthem during the press briefing led by FilAm Sports co-founders Ed Lasquete, a 1992 Barcelona Olympian, and PR practitioner Bo Navarro.
An accomplished piano player and violinist, Bossong has a personal best of two minutes and 0.92 seconds, just a shade off the World Athletics Olympic entry standard of 1:59.30.
This explains why she is keen on finally securing her Philippine passport by tomorrow as she attempts to duplicate or surpass the time in her only event in the meet before a Filipino crowd.
Mrs. Bossong said they have to return to the US right after her daughter’s event so she could prepare for the NCAA Nationals next week.
Navarro said Bossong and her mother came to the country on short notice to finalize the documents needed so she could get a Philippine passport.
“What we intend to do after this press conference is to take a look at those papers. The one thing that we want to make sure that we do it properly,” Navarro stressed.
