The three Filipino punchers who booked berths to the 2017 world championships in Germany will step up to the plate next month when they perform either in Kazakhstan or Mongolia.
Fresh from securing tickets to the Aug. 25 to Sept. 3 in Hamburg during the Asian championships in Uzbekistan, light-fly Rogen Ladon, fly Dannel Maamo and middleweight Eumir Felix Marcial are revving up for another round of competitions as they aspire to finally give the Philippines a gold medal in the biennial slugfest regarded as next to the Olympics in terms of quality of entries.
In the country’s long and arduous campaign in the worlds, there have been only two occasions when Filipinos fought for the gold and it came in 1997 and 2007.
Roel Velasco settled for the silver in Budapest, Hungary, while Harry Tañamor also did the same thing in Chicago.
Hopes are high that this batch would finally put an end to the hunt with top officials meeting today to chart their target in Germany as well as its goal in the 29th Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur also in August.
The worlds and SEAG are taking place simultaneously, prompting officials to come up with two solid squads for the two major meets.
The Philippines is the defending champion in the SEAG after taking five golds the last time in Singapore.
Other marquee names on the men’s team are lightweight Charly Suarez, fly Ian Clark Bautista and bantam Mario Fernandez.