French Gendarmes walk past a banner for the forthcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games outside The National Assembly – Assemblee nationale in Paris on May 5, 2024. AFP
With three more track stars sure to qualify, Philippine athletics has written a piece of history even before the Paris Games get off the ground.
Hurdlers John Cabang Tolentino and Lauren Hoffman are just counting the days before their acceptance notice for the Games arrives along with sprinter Kristina Knott with less than two weeks before the qualification ends as they join pole vault ace EJ Obiena in the world’s fashion capital.
Robyn Brown, the women’s 400-meter hurdles Asian champion, could even bring the qualifiers of the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (Patafa) to five.
“They still have to compete in a tournament or two before the qualification window closes. The list of those who made it to Paris will be released a week later,’’ Patafa President Terry Capistrano told the Inquirer.
Flagbearers
Meanwhile, boxers Carlo Paalam and Nesthy Petecio will carry the Philippine flag in the parade of nations in the opening ceremony.
Paalam and Petecio, who both secured silver medals in the previous Olympics in Tokyo, were designated flagbearers by the Philippine Olympic Committee for the opening rites set July 26.
Tolentino, the Spain-based Filipino record holder in the men’s 110-m hurdles, is ranked 28th out of 40 qualifiers in his event with one more race to go at the Meeting Madrid in Spain on June 21 prior to the June 30 deadline set by World Athletics.
Hoffman, sitting at 34th with 40 Olympic slots in the women’s 400-m hurdles, will wrap up her slot in the prestigious Czeslaw Cybulski Memorial in Poznan, Poland, on June 23.
Sending four to five Filipino athletes from track and field is an unparalleled feat no Philippine Olympic delegation has done in a century of participation in the global sports showcase.
So far, the highest number of track and field athletes to the Olympics was three—hurdler Eric Cray, marathoner Mary Joy Tabal and long jumper Marestella Torres—during the 2016 edition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. INQ
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