POLE vaulter Ernest John Obiena and nine other athletes have been nominated as candidates to the seven-man Philippine Olympic Committee Athletes Commission in polls to be held tomorrow at the basketball court of the Rizal Memorial Sports complex.
Aside from Paris Olympic Games-bound Obiena, the other candidates are veteran football player Inna Palacio, shooters Jason Valdez and Amparo Acuna, triathlete John Chicano, fencer Juan Miguel Bautista, rugby player Karl Stroem, boxer Nesty Petecio, swimmer Jessie Khing Lacuna and basketball player Jack Animam.
Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Petecio and two-time Olympian Lacuna are seeking re-election, while softball player Francesca Altamonte, rugby player Jake Letts, weightlifter Hidylin-Diaz Naranjo and taekwondo jin Samuel Morrison have decided not to run again for a new four-year term.
The candidates to the POC Athletes Commission met the following guidelines:
They belong to an Olympic sport, at least 18 years old, have not been sanctioned for any doping offense, and have not been suspended for any legal or ethical offense that is the subject of arbitration.
The nominees also must have seen action in the last 10 years priors to the polls in either the Summer or Winter Olympic Games, Summer and Winter Youth Olympics, World Championships, World Cups, World Games, Asian Games and Southeast Asian Games.
The winners will become members of the POC Athletes Commission under a new Olympic cycle and they will field two representatives who will vote in the POC polls scheduled in November where POC president and Tagaytay city Mayor Bambol Tolentino is expected to run for re-election.
A back-to-back Southeast Asian Games triathlon champion, Huelgas and Diaz-Naranjo were the POC Athletes Commission’s voters during the POC polls held in 2020 when Tolentino won his first four-year term as POC president.
