WARSAW, Poland – The Philippine boxing team made waves in the Feliks Stamm Memorial Tournament in this Polish capital by winning two gold medals in the traditionally strong tournament which drew to a close late Friday night (PH time).
Nesthy Petecio, who just boxed her way last month to a gold medal finish in the highly-regarded Indian Open in New Delhi, continued her winning ways by upending Omella Warner of Germany in the final of the Women’s Bantamweight (57kg) class.
Binalbagan, Negros Occidental native Ian Clark Bautista, 23, blanked Turkmenistan’s Zarip Jumayev, 5-0 in the 52kg flyweight class to cop the Philippine’s second gold. Bautista was a gold medalist in the Singapore SEA Games in 2015.
ABAP president and newly-elected Philippine Olympic Committee head Ricky Vargas hailed the performance of the team:
“I am extremely proud of our boxers who are hard at training for the Asian Games this year, next year’s SEA Games which we are hosting and all the way to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. After promising performances in the Indian Open and now in Warsaw, our long-term program is off to a good start,” Vargas said.
Petecio, a 25 year old mainstay of the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (ABAP) national team, was a silver medalist in the World Championships in Jeju, Korea in 2014. She won silver in the SEA Games the following year.
Two other Pinoy pugs, lightweight Junel Cantancio and bantamweight Mario Bautista managed bronze medals.
