WORLD boxing champion Nesthy Petecio and several other Tokyo Olympics hopefuls have to wait awhile before they could start sweating it out in face-to-face training at the Inspire Sports Academy bubble in Calamba, Laguna.
Petecio and company entered the bubble last Friday and they have to complete a 14-day quarantine period—confined to their rooms and banned from roaming the facility.
“We haven’t seen the entire place yet, because we are not allowed to go out,” Petecio told the BusinessMirror on Tuesday. She shares a room with fellow female boxers Tokyo-bound Irish Magno and Analene Cellon.
The other female Olympic hopefuls, Quesedian Riza Pasuit and Aira Chan, are in another room.
Paris is hosting the Olympic boxing qualifiers at still to be specified dates in June, according to Association of Boxing Alliances of the Philippines secretary general Ed Picson.
The Calamba bubble will last for 60 days with only Olympic hopefuls being accommodated at the training center set up by the Philippine Sports Commission.
With Petecio in the bubble are male boxers Ronnie Ogayre, Carlo Paalam, Markhun Tabamo, Aston Palicte, Mario Fernandez and Marjon Piencenaves.
Practically the entire Abap coaching staff—Pat Gaspi, Nolito Velasco, Reynaldo Galido, Mitchel Martinez, Elmer Pamisa, Australian consultant Don Abnett, Roger Ladon, Roel Velasco and Ronald Chavez—are also in the bubble.
Josie Gabuco, the country’s first women’s world champion in 2012, is also in the bubble to spar with the female boxers.
Men’s middleweight Eumir Felix Marcial and women’s flyweight Irish Magno already earned their tickets for Tokyo at last year’s qualifiers in Amman just before the lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic. Petecio was also in Jordan but failed to qualify.