WITH boxing assured of being in the calendar of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines can now go full steam ahead in its preparations and training for the national team, according to ABAP secretary general Marcus Manalo.
Manalo disclosed that it starts with a squad of 10 boxers – eight men and two women – who will have a training camp at the modern Jincheon National Training Center from April 7 to 17 in Jincheon, South Korea.
Manalo said leading the squad that will undergo intensive training at the facility that can host over 1,000 athletes in 35 sports is Cambodia Southeast Asian Games featherweight gold medalist Ian Clark Bautista.
Also going are Cambodia SEA Games welterweight silver medalist Norlan Petecio, Jay Bryan Baricuatro, Marvin Tabamo, Eljay Pamisa, Mark Ashley Fajardo, John Paul Napoles, Brandon Jay Soriano, and female boxers Ofelia Magno and Riza Pasuit, a light welterweight silver medalist in the Cambodia Games.
Manalo said the ABAP was glad that the International Olympic Committee decided to retain one of the pioneer Olympic sports for the Los Angeles Summer Games during its 144th IOC Congress in Athens, Greece, last month.
ABAP is one of the founding members of World Boxing, the new world amateur body that will take over the qualification and conduct of the LA Olympics, which was formally recognized during the historic meeting where South African Kirsty Coventry was elected as the first female IOC president.
“We congratulate the World Boxing (WB) for its recent recognition as the International Federation for boxing by the IOC. The Philippines is a founding member and a member of the WB Board,” said ABAP chairman Ricky Vargas in a statement posted on the ABAP website.
“This recognition presents an opportunity for WB to address past wrongs which we fought so hard for,” added Vargas, who was voted a member of the WB Executive Board in November 2023 and will be the national team chief of mission for the LA Olympics.
