PH ice athletes aim to bag gold medals in SEA Games

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines hopes to bring home medals when it participates in ice hockey, figure skating, and speed skating in the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games)  in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from August 19 to 31.

The Philippines bets in the 3 ice sports – featured for the first time in the SEA Games – hope to make the country proud as they expressed their thoughts on the tournament in a press conference on Thursday, July 27, at the SM Mega Mall Skating Rink.

Ice hockey team manager Francois Gautier said that there are 5 golds up for grabs in the ice events – one for ice hockey, and two each for figure skating and speed skating.

“The team has been improving a lot since we started training. We don’t have a lot of players in the Philippine but all our players have something positive to bring to the team,” Gautier said.

Kathryn Magno, the first speed skating athlete to represent the country, shared how the athletes have prepared for the competition.

“We set a goal for ourselves and make sure we do it. We focus on training. There’s really nothing impossible,” the 27-year-old Magno added.

Julius Santiago said one of their toughest opponents in the SEA Games ice hockey event would be Thailand since that team is more experienced. But he believed that the Philippine team could put up a great match against them.

“Some of the players in Thailand are my friends and they’ve really been training hard. They also competed in more games than us but I think we can win against them,” Santiago said.

Overall, all the teams are eager to showcase the talent of Filipinos in ice events despite the lack of resources.

“All of us, our goal is to bring honor to the country especially in a big tournament such as the SEA Games. For the first time, we’re going to bring home the gold,” said ice hockey player BJ Imperial.

Gautier also explained the transition from a 30-minute game to the SEA Games format of a full one-hour match doesn’t have any effect on the team’s performance since they’ve always had intensity in their training.

“I don’t really think there is a huge adjustment because when we practice, we practice for a full 60-minutes. Sometimes we play for 80 minutes,” said Gautier.  – Rappler.com