THE Philippine National Shooting Association has tapped the services of a two-time Olympian from Ukraine to serve as the coach of Olympic hopeful Hagen Topacio, who is bidding to secure a ticket to the Paris Olympics in qualifying competitions.
“We have hired Ukrainian coach Aleksandr Lavrinenko to train Hagen, whom we believe is one of our strong prospects of qualifying for the Paris Olympics,” said PNSA Secretary General Iryne Garcia the other day at the PSA forum.
Lavrinenko, 62, saw action in the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Olympiads, placing 16th and 25th, respectively, in the mixed trap events.
“We believe that Lavrinenko will be helpful so that Hagen will be able to compete in Paris,” said Garcia of the stocky trap shooter, who is currently tied at No. 14 with Juho Johannes Maekelae in the International Shooting Sports Federation world rankings.
He is the highest-rated Filipino athlete in any of the ISSF Olympic shooting events.
Topacio, who finished sixth overall in the recent Asian Shotgun Cup in Kuwait, has his work cut out for him as he shoots for one of two slots available in the ISSF World Olympic Qualification Tournament scheduled April 19 to 29 in Doha, Qatar.
He could have been the representative in the Tokyo Olympic Games after finishing second in the Asian shotgun shooting championships in Kuwait in 2018, but the results were nullified by the ISSF after Kuwaiti organizers barred the entry of technical official from Israel for taking part in the event.
Instead, rifle shooter Jayson Valdez was a awarded a wildcard slot by the ISSF and competed in the Japanese capital three years ago.
But Garcia said in the same forum that the International Olympic Committee will no longer award this to the Philippines because of the size of its last delegations in the quadrennial meet.
