By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Olympic fever has started to grip Team Philippines as the first batch of Filipino athletes entered the Athletes Village over the weekend in time for the 2024 Paris Games scheduled to officially start on Friday, July 26.
Gymnasts Carlos Yulo, Aleah Finnegan, Levi Ruivivar and Emma Malabuyo were the first to check in at the Village that would house thousands of athletes and coaches for the two-week hostilities.
“Check in from the Olympic Village,” Finnegan wrote on a social media post, accompanied by a picture of her posing with the Olympic rings.
Yulo and Malabuyo also shared a group photo of them on social media, while Ruivivar posted a video of her room, as well as the Village which she said was “literally like a college town.”
Boxers Nesthy Petecio, Aira Villegas, Hergie Bacyadan, Carlo Paalam and Eumir Marcial are also scheduled to check in to the Village at press time, with Bacyadan, Paalam and Marcial coming in from a weeks-long training in Saarbrucken, Germany.
Villegas and Petecio, meanwhile, are coming from Metz, France where they spent the past month training in a facility along with the majority of the 22-player PH team.
Other members of the PH team are set to check in depending on their competition schedule, with Vanessa Sarno, Elreen Ando and John Ceniza expected to enter early in August since the weightlifting competition is set on Aug. 7.
Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman Richard Bachmann also flew to France on Monday to check on the situation of the athletes, while Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) President Bambol Tolentino is also set to return to Paris this week after overseeing the PH team’s Metz training.
Athletes, coaches and officials are upbeat of their chances in the quadrennial event with Tolentino confident that the PH team could surpass the country’s previous showing of one gold, two silver and one bronze medal in the Tokyo edition held three years ago.
The PH team has 22 athletes that include seven returning Olympians, four of them medalists, including Fil-Canadian Kayla Sanchez
