PSC Commissioner Ramon Fernandez yesterday said the Teachers Camp in Baguio City will open its doors beginning July 1 to national athletes in combat sport who will gear up for the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games in November.
Fernandez, the national team chief of mission to the Vietnam Games, said they expect to accommodate athletes in boxing, taekwondo, karate, muay thai, kurash and kick boxing to the PSC facility that has a newly-renovated dormitory of 175 rooms.
“Earlier, we were looking at 30 percent capacity but now since majority of these athletes will have been vaccinated by then we intend to accommodate 50 percent or around 80 athletes and coaches for their SEA Games training,” he said.
Through the initiative of Philippine Olympic Committee President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, Vietnam-bound and Olympic-bound campaigners received the first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 last week.
Fernandez said he has inspected the gym where the athletes will do their workouts “and it has a ring on one side and mats on the other. So boxing, kick boxing and muay thai can share the ring while karate, taekwondo, and kurash can take turns at the mats.”
He said that judo chief Dave Carter informed him the national judo team will have its own bubble training in Santa Rosa, Laguna through the auspices of Santa Rosa Mayor Arlene Nazareno.
Fernandez said the national athletics squad will be quartered separately in the dormitories of the Department of Education and will train at the Baguio Athletic Bowl near Burnham Park that is run by the Baguio City government.
Fernandez, who is set to fly back to Cebu this weekend to attend to some personal matters, said he intends to stay in Baguio by early July so he can monitor the progress of the build-up of the national athletes in combat sports that were assigned to him.
With the sports disciplines in the Vietnam Games having been pruned to 40, he said the contribution of these campaigners could prove pivotal in the country’s overall finish in the regional games set Nov. 21 to Dec. 2 set in the Vietnamese capital in Hanoi.
