Tokyo Olympics bound boxer Irish Magno and a few more Olympic hopefuls left Wednesday for Bangkok for a two-month training camp at the Koh Samui Island in Thailand.
Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) secretary-general Ed Picson said Magno and nine other boxers and five coaches are part of the delegation for Team Philippines.
“The team left on invitation of the Thai Boxing Federation,” said Picson when contacted by Manila Bulletin. “We are very grateful to Thailand Boxing Association president Pichai Chunhavajira for his initiative.”
The national team has two boxers in the Tokyo Olympics in Eumir Marcial and Magno. They earned their slots via the Asian Olympic Qualifiers held last year in Amman, Jordan.
Organizers of boxing’s world Olympic qualifiers in Paris have cancelled the event although ABAP chief Rocky Vargas has said that world rankings would be used to determine the remaining slots for all the weight groups for male and female.
Magno was with other Olympic aspirants like Nesthy Petecio and Carlo Paalam inside the training bubble in Calamba, Laguna while Marcial is currently in Los Angeles, California.
Picson said ABAP is talking with Marcial’s handlers from MP Promotions for the possibility of him joining the training camp in Thailand.
The national team contingent, according to Picson, will be quarantined once they arrive from Manila. After that, the athletes and coaches will proceed to Koh Samui Island.
“They’ll have training and competition sparring until April 10. Then they move to Muaklek outside of Bangkok,” he said.
Aside from the training camp in Thailand, Picson said ABAP is looking at the possibility of giving additional international exposures to the boxers by joining the ASBC tournament in New Delhi on May 21-30. (W. Galvez, mb.com)