Search for the Next Mary Joy Tabal in the Visayas begins

Mars G. Alison

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Search for the Next Mary Joy Tabal in the Visayas begins
The PSC would like to find another running talent like Cebu's Mary Joy Tabal


CEBU CITY, Philippines – The search for the next Mary Joy Tabal in the Visayas will begin on the first Sunday of 2018 at the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Sinulog Fun Run 2018 which is slated for January 7 with the start and finish areas to be at the Cebu City Sports Center (CCSC).

The run will kick off the Visayas Open Tournament which is one of the talent identification programs of the PSC in the Visayas region.  

The run will also kickoff the month-long Sinulog festivities which Cebu celebrates in honor of the feast of its patron, the Holy Child Jesus or more famously known as the Señor Sto. Niño.

The Visayas Open Tournament is the brainchild of PSC commissioner Ramon “El Presidente” Fernandez, who specifically asked to be assigned to the Visayas region so he could provide opportunities for Visayas athletes who have the potential to represent the country in international events such as the Olympics.

The event is aimed at strengthening the grassroots in 15 Olympic sports such as archery, badminton, boxing, fencing, judo, karatedo, marathon, open water swimming, shooting, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon and weightlifting. Arnis, which is not an Olympic sport but is the national sport of the Philippines, will also be scouted.

According to Nonie Lopez, the Philippine Sports Institute (PSI) director, PSC will sponsor two fun runs as part of the Visayas Open Tournament with the goal of finding long-distance runners who can follow in the footsteps of Mary Joy Tabal, the first Filipino woman to have seen action in the Olympics in the sport of marathon.

Tabal, who also bagged the first gold for the Philippines in this year’s 29th Southeast Asian Games held in Kuala Lumpur, is a native of Cebu who hails from Guba, a mountain barangay of Cebu City.

Sinulog Fun Run

The run will have 3 distances—3K for the 12 Under boys and girls, 5K for the 13-14 and 15-16 boys and girls, and the 10K for the 17-18, 19-20 and 21-22 boys and girls.

PSC Visayas executive director Bobbi Kintanar said that the top 5 boys and girls finishers in each age group category will form the first 60 who will be trained by Tabal’s long-time coach John Philip Dueñas for 12 weekends at the CCSC oval. They will form the training pool for Cebu.

These 60 runners will then be made to compete, all-expense free, in the second leg of the PSC-sponsored fun runs as part of the Visayas Open Tournament sometime in August in Iloilo which will also identify another 60 runners from that area of the Visayas. Together they will form the Visayas training pool in running.

According to Lopez, the event is a 3-year program and starting 2018, they hope to identify 120 runners with potential for a total of 360 by 2020. He added that it is best to start identifying the athletes potential while they are as young as 12 years old. 

Although the program is conceptualized for the Visayas region, it may be duplicated in Mindanao. 

Open Category

Since PSC is targeting zero expense for the athletes, the PSC Sinulog Fun Run is targeting participants in the 22-under range who will get free registration to the event. All they need to do is to bring a photocopy of their PSA (formerly NSO) birth certificate when they fill up the registration form at the PSC Office located at the CCSC.

Despite the free registration, the 3 finishers in the boys and girls 22-under category in the 3 distances will get a cash prize. The 3K will have P3,000 for first place, P2,000 for second, and P1,000 for third. The 5K top 3 finishers will get P4,000, P2,500 and P1,500, respectively while the first, second and third placers in the 10K will get P5,000, P3,000 and P2,000, respectively. All winners will also get medals.

Not only that, the first 300 finishers in the 3 distances regardless of gender will get a finishers’ singlet.  

The fun run, however, will also welcome runners 23 and above, male and female, but for a fee. Registration fee for the 3K is P350, P450 for the 5K and P500 for the 10K. The registration fee will already include a singlet. Top 3 male and female finishers will receive the same cash prizes as those of the 22-under as well as medals.

The money earned from the registration will be donated by the PSC to the Sinulog Foundation.

The event is targeting about 5,000 participants but is willing to accommodate if there will be more.

Sinulog Foundation executive director Ricky Ballesteros said PSC’s program of identification of the Visayas athletes is very commendable because it will open a lot of opportunities for the athletes in this region. He attributes this to having Fernandez, who is a Bisaya being originally a native of Maasin, Leyte and is now Cebu-based, as one of the PSC commissioners.

He added that it is also apt that the identification should start in the Visayas as Tabal is from Cebu and it is where she started training. Another gold medal SEA Games marathoner from Cebu is Roy Vince of the town of Bogo.  

Lopez said this will be the first PSI project for 2018 aimed at profiling Visayas athletes.

For the PSC Sinulog Fun Run, however, this new ruling of competing in their respective native land is being waived. Thus, runners from outside Cebu can compete in the event.

PSC will also be looking into providing college scholarships to those who will become members of the training pool so they will not have to go to Manila and train. 

The PSC is also mulling international training for the pool members. – Rappler.com

For more information, call Audie Marte at (032) 2547291.

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