Tokyo Olympics

Before boxing, Olympic bet Irish Magno earned living through farm work

Delfin Dioquino

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Before boxing, Olympic bet Irish Magno earned living through farm work

MAIDEN. Irish Magno is the first Filipina boxer to qualify for the Olympics.

Photo by Alecs Ongcal/Rappler

Through boxing, Olympics-bound Irish Magno managed to help her sibling finish college and build a house for her family

Filipina Olympic bet Irish Magno once worked in a farm to support her family before pursuing a boxing career, which is now at its peak as she is set to see action in the Tokyo Games.

Magno bared she used to cut rice crops and plant corn with her parents to earn a living and pitch in for their daily expenses.

“I really wanted to help my family because even with my meager salary before, it proved to be a big help for us to buy food like sardines or noodles,” Magno said in Filipino on her YouTube vlog.

“We were already satisfied with those.”

The Janiuay, Iloilo native went on to try boxing and eventually cracked the national team roster.

Magno donned the national colors in 3 of the last 4 editions of the Southeast Asian Games, winning a bantamweight bronze medal in 2013 and flyweight silver medals in 2015 and 2019.

She then became the first Filipina boxer to reach the Olympics after punching her ticket to Tokyo in the Asia and Oceania Olympic Boxing Qualifiers last year.

Through boxing, Magno managed to help her sister Cheryl finish a degree in criminology and build a sturdy house for her family.

Magno recalled the times when she and her family needed to evacuate to shelters during typhoons since their old home had holes in the roof.

“Now, even if it storms, our house is durable and you will not see stars when you look at the ceiling,” the 29-year-old said.

Magno added she does not want her younger siblings and the rest of her family to experience hardships like they did before.

“I’m doing all of this for my family,” Magno said. “As long as I can, I will support them.” – Rappler.com

Add a comment

Sort by

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

Summarize this article with AI

How does this make you feel?

Loading
Download the Rappler App!
Person, Human, Clothing

author

Delfin Dioquino

Delfin Dioquino dreamt of being a PBA player, but he did not have the skills to make it. So he pursued the next best thing to being an athlete – to write about them. He took up journalism at the University of Santo Tomas and joined Rappler as soon as he graduated in 2017.