NECESSITY is the mother of invention.
The local archery and taekwondo associations took the cue from several other sports and went online as venue for competitions amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic.
World Archery Philippines successfully conducted its second local Olympic qualifiers of national team members over the weekend with Dagupan City-based Jason Feliciano subduing Negros Oriental-based Phoebe Amistoso 6-4 in the Olympic 70-meter recurve event.
Dumaguete City-based Carson Hastie, who lost 0-6 to Feliciano in the semifinals, settled for bronze.
In the compound contest, Manila-based Jennifer Robles nipped national team veteran Jennifer Chan, who is based in Dumaguete City, 145-143 in the 50-meter event.
While the outcome of the second staging of the competition was okay, World Archery Philippines president Atty. Clint Aranas said “we need to make more improvements so that the tournaments will involve more of our elite archers.”
He noted that staging the online contests also posed certain logistical problems since they needed an archery range where the archers can shoot.
“But we will try to conduct as many competitions as we can to keep our national team members in competitive shape, and hopefully some of them will be ready to compete in the archery Olympic qualifiers once they are set,” Aranas said.
Staging virtual competitions is something that the Philippine Taekwondo Association has been conducting since May, according to PTA online program director Igor Mella.
“We had to jump start our members who have been hungry for physical activity so this is what we came up with through the leadership of our PTA vice president and chief executive officer Master Hong Sung Chong,” said Mella.
He added that these competitions serve to complement and serve as outlets for the online training the PTA, which it has also started with its members, including those involving the national teams in both poomsae (forms) and kyorugi (sparring).
The local taekwondo body began with online poomsae competitions but two weeks ago launched its first speed-kicking tournament for its kyorugi exponents, with some of the aspects of poomsae meets incorporated into the performances.
“We were successful with the kata competitions and pleased with the outcome of the speed-kicking tournament where more than 1,000 entries in various age groups and categories took part,” Mella said.
Emerging in the men’s and senior women’s divisions of the speed-kicking tournament, the first to be held in the world, were 30th Southeast Games gold medalists and Olympic hopefuls Samuel Morrison and Pauline Louise Lopez, respectively.
The PTA will conduct its latest national age group poomsae championships on Aug. 8-9 while the second national age group speed-kicking championships is set Aug. 22 to 23, according to Mella.
