By Waylon Galvez
With majority members of the national team continue to spend time at home because of quarantine protocols, the Philippine Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission believes it is the best time to offer online courses.
National triathlete Nikko Huelgas said that under the program of the POC, online courses from the International Olympic Committee’s Athlete365 education platform are being offered for free.
“This is available, and we’ll discuss this to our AC members,” said Huelgas, who chairs the commission, in a phone interview Wednesday. “Since most of our athletes are online, this is a good way to learn.”
Courses to be offered, according to Huelgas, are coaching, nutrition and sports management – categories from where athletes could go once they retire from actual competition in their respective sports.
Members of the national team from various disciplines have stopped training because of the lockdown brought by the coronavirus pandemic. Athletes spend time at home training, and online courses should improve their knowledge in the programs offered.
Huelgas and other members of the Athletes’ Commission will conduct on June 20 a National Athletes Forum via Zoom.
“This is long overdue actually, February or March pa sana to but because of the pandemic, we postponed it. Now we’re meeting via online and we’ll discuss lots of things with the members,” said Huelgas.
The former two-time gold medalist in the Southeast Asian Games said that they hope to see the captains of different sports in the forum, which the commission is doing every year.
Aside from Huelgas, other officials of the Athletes’ Commission are Jake Letts of rugby, boxing’s Nesthy Petecio, Francesca Altomonte of softball, Samuel Morrison of taekwondo, as well as Olympians Hidilyn Diaz of weightlifting and Jessie Lacuna of swimming.
