INTRIGUING and interesting rivalries, some of them pitting homegrown against overseas-based Filipino athletes, highlight the foreign-laced ICTSI Philippine Athletics Championships set March 21 to 26 at the Ilagan Sports Complex in Ilagan, Isabela.
“The Philippine Athletics Championships will be an athletic showcase of some thrilling rivalries pitting our local national athletes against some of our Fil-heritage ones,” athletics secretary general Edward Kho said during the Philippine Sportswriters Association forum yesterday at the Philippine Sports Commission conference room.
Joining Kho in the program backed by the PSC, Philippine Olympic Committee, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., Milo and San Miguel Corp., were Philippine Racing Commission chairman Reli de Leon, a consultant of the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association, and national head coach Jojo Posadas.
Kho said the six-day competition supported by the Ilagan city government led by Mayor Josemarie Diaz will be the last tryouts for the national team for the 32nd Cambodia Southeast Asian Games in May.
He added that World Athletics ranking points will be at stake in the meet that has drawn over 500 athletes, including entries from Brunei Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Among the battles expected to draw attention during the event also backed by CEL Logistics is the clash in the men’s pole vault event between hometown bet Hokett delos Santos and Filipino-American Elijah Cole.
Since world championship bronze medalist and Asian record holder Ernest John Obiena has been seeded to the Cambodia SEA Games and won’t be around, Delos Santos and Cole will dispute the second slot in the regional meet.
Delos Santos, who took the silver medal behind Obiena in the Vietnam SEA Games last year, has a personal best jump of 5.20 meters while Cole, a former University of North Carolina varsity mainstay, boasts a personal best of 5.41 meters.
Kho said another event that promises tight action is the women’s 400-meter race featuring comebacking Maureen Schrijvers and Fil-Ams Robyn Brown and Laurent Hoffman.
After a long layoff, Schrijvers, currently coached by US-based mentor Gary Cablayan, was back in sharp form and set a personal best of 55.88 seconds in ruling the women’s 400-meter run in the recent Patafa national team trials at the Philsports track oval on top of ruling the 200-meter dash.
Brown and Hoffmann have personal bests of 55.12 and 56.96 seconds, respectively, in the event and, together with Schrijvers, will be in a three-way horserace for the two slots in the 400-meter run for the Cambodia Games.
Back-to-back men’s 110-meter hurdles SEA Games champion Clinton Kingsley Bautista, who holds the national record of 13.78 seconds set in winning the gold in last year’s Vietnam Games, will be in for a fight against Fil-Spanish John Cabang.
Cabang has a personal best of 13.88 seconds in the event so it should be a stiff duel between the two in the event that will be ushered in by the Philippine Masters Athletics Championships at the same venue on March 21.
Last not but not the least is the looming three-way dogfight among two-time SEA Games men’s decathlete champion Aries Toledo, Janry Ubas, and promising John Mike Lara, who will all be keen in bagging the two slots for Cambodia.
Kho said former SEA Games long jump queen Elma Muros-Posadas, cited with the PSA Lifetime Achievement Award last week, will lead the colorful opening rites on March 21.
Posadas said the holding of the ICTSI-Philippine Athletics Championships is timely since they will still have six weeks to prepare for the Cambodia Games since the track and field events will be held from May 8 to 13 at the Morodok Techno National Stadium in the nation’s capital of Phnom Penh.
De Leon said that Patafa president Terry Capistrano has urged the national team s”to surpass our previous performance of five golds in the last Vietnam SEA Games and he believes that with the longer preparations now our athletes can achieve that.”
The trackfest will stake 165 medals in 80 events in the Open Elite, Under-20 and Under-18 groups.
“After this event, we will know where we are towards the SEA Games,” said De Leon.
“We’re ready to go. No stone left unturned. Magandang laban ito and this could be a preview of what’s in store in the SEA Games,” said Kho.
