Boxers arrive from Baguio, trip home set

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EXCEPT for junior boxer Clint Jara, 13 boxers plus some coaches in the national training pool arrived in Manila yesterday from the Philippine Sports Commission training camp in Baguio City, according to PSC National Sports Association affairs department head Annie Ruiz.

Ruiz said the group, led by six female and seven male boxers, is now at the Philsports Complex in Pasig City where “they are being kept in separate dorms.”

She said that Jara, a native of Bacolod City, was advised to stay longer in Baguio by PSC physician William Occidental, who has been monitoring the athletes at the training camp, for further observation.

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“Dr. Occidental advised the boxer to remain in Baguio for a while for observation as a precaution,” she said, adding that national women’s coach Reynaldo Galido also stayed behind to keep Jara company.

Jara tested negative last Tuesday for the COVID-19 virus after undergoing the polymerase chain reaction test last Saturday after his previous rapid test showed otherwise. The rest were found negative after taking the rapid test.

Among those who came down with the boxers were coaches Mitchell Martinez, a former world amateur boxing champion, and Elias Recaido Jr., a gold medalist in the 1994 Hiroshima Asian, who went directly to their homes in Quezon City and Cavite, respectively, according to Ruiz.

Expected to travel back to Davao City were world champion and 30th Southeast Asian Games gold champion Nesthy Petecio and his younger brother Norlan, a member of the youth squad, while Olympic hopeful Irish Magno would return to her hometown in Iloilo.

“While they stay at the dorms, the PSC will book their flights to their respective provinces and secure their travel pass from the city government of Pasig where the Philsports Complex is located,” Ruiz said. “We have also secured entry permits from local government units where they live.”

The boxers and coaches have been cooped up in the PSC training camp in Baguio since the national government locked down Luzon in mid-March to contain the spread of the deadly virus.

Only when travel restrictions were eased were they allowed by Baguio City officials to come down to Manila.

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