TAGAYTAY. — With an unprecedented and historic Harbin Asian Winter Games gold medal, the Philippine men’s curling squad is now eyeing a new milestone: qualifying for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina and Milano, Italy.
“I know that it will be difficult, but we will try to do our best to make history once again by qualifying for the Winter Olympics in Italy next year,” said Curling Association of the Philippines president Benjo Belarmente in a press conference at the Knights Templar Hotel here Sunday hours after arriving late Saturday night from the provincial capital of Inner Mongolia.
Accompanied by Philippine Olympic Committee president and Tagaytay Mayor Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, joining Belarmente at the briefing were siblings Marc and Enrico Pfister, Christian Haller and Alan Frei, who are all based in Switzerland and born to Filipino mothers, coaches Jessica Pfister and Miguel Gutierrez and CAP secretary general Jarryd Bello.
“Coming from a tropical country like ours, this was a remarkable achievement by our national men’s curling team, which made our country proud by not only winning our first Asian Winter Games gold medal but also emerging as the best performer at the event in Southeast Asia. This was amazing,” Tolentino stressed.
Composed mostly of part-time curling athletes, although the Pfister siblings played for the national Swiss team and Christian Haller was with its national junior squad, the PH bets rocked the elite field that included Asian powerhouses South Korea, China and Japan.
After placing second in Group A with a 3-1 win-loss record – their only loss a 1-6 setback to the South Koreans – the Filipino bets went on a fairy tale run, beginning with a 10-4 upset over Japan in the quarterfinals.
They took a huge step in qualifying for the finals with a nerve-wracking 7-6 decision over the host Chinese at the Harbin Pingfang District Curling Arena, setting up a rematch for the gold with their South Korean group stage tormentors.
Playing with nothing to lose, the PH standard-bearers exacted sweet revenge, coming back from a 1-4 deficit in the first half to humble their fancied rivals 5-3 on Valentine’s Day, capping the country’s campaign on the last day of the games on a golden note.
“When we prepared for Harbin, we were just aiming for a bronze, so this achievement really took us by surprise,” said Belarmente, who was a team alternate and had wooed the Pfister brothers as far back in the 2018 world curling championships in Las Vegas where the national Swiss squad finished sixth overall.
Belarmente said to qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics, the team needs to make it to the top three in the pre-Olympic qualifying event in October at a still undetermined venue then play in the qualifying event in December where the finalists will join eight other squads, completing a 10-team cast in Italy.
“We know that it will be a challenging task, but given what we have accomplished so far, we can always aspire to achieve more for the country,” he said.
Realizing their need for financial support, Tolentino said he would endorse the PH men’s curling squad as Olympic Solidarity scholars with the International Olympic Committee, a subsidy that will run up to the Winter Olympics in the French Alps in France in 2030.
With the team returning to Switzerland early tomorrow, the POC chief is hoping to arrange a courtesy call at Malacanang with President Marcos Jr. today for the Asian Winter Games golden performers. (B. Pedralvez, Malaya)
