The Philippine Sports Commission is pulling out all the stops to ensure that all athletes and para-athletes aiming for spots in the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics will get all the support they need.
PSC commissioner Walter Torres said that the government’s sports agency will form a committee to assist Olympic hopefuls to perform better in qualifying tournaments for the 26 July to 11 August Games.
“The Board has decided to form a committee to assist the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls in terms of preparations, their needs leading into the Games. The head will be chairman Bachmann and helping him is Comm. Fritz Gaston then together with the other board members, we are assisting the chairman,” Torres said in a radio interview.
The said committee will be a collaboration between the PSC, the Philippine Olympic Committee and several national sports associations.
“This is in coordination with the NSA and the Philippine Olympic Committee so everybody’s helping out. It is still being built. Discussions have begun so I‘m sure it will eventually go into the technical working group so the collaboration and assistance to the athletes will be quick,” he added.
So far, Gymnasts Carlos Yulo and Aleah Finnegan, Eumir Marcial of boxing and EJ Obiena of pole vault are the only Filipinos already secured of tickets to the Summer Games.
Torres is confident the country will be able to match if not surpass the 17 athletes and the four para-athletes sent to Tokyo in 2021.
“If you talk about the Olympic Games, sports like fencing, taekwondo and judo have their qualifiers this year. In addition to the four qualified Olympians, there are a lot of chances for the Filipinos to qualify,” Torres said.
