The 2023 National Kickboxing Championships opened on Wednesday with more than 200 combat athletes from various martial arts clubs nationwide seeing action at the newly built Tagaytay Combat Sports Center in Tagaytay City.
Some national athletes are taking part in the three-day event that aims to fill the slots for the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games slate for February next year.
They include Cambodia Southeast Asian Games gold winners Gretel de Paz and Claudine Veloso, silver medalist Gina Iniong and bronze medalists Harold Banario and Jomar Balangui, to name a few.
Athletes come from Baguio, Benguet, Ilocos Sur, Cebu, Bicol, Iloilo, Cavite, Rizal and Metro Manila that will compete in lowkick and full contact in the ring sport category and pointfighting and kicklight in the mat category.
“We have expanded our events to accommodate younger athletes to discover more junior fighters. At the same time, senior athletes, including our national players will vie for slots to AIMAG in Thailand,” said Samahang Kickboxing Ng Pilipinas secretary general Atty. Wharton Chan.
SKP founder and chairman Emeritus Mayor Abraham Tolentino of Tagaytay City declared the Games open and extolled the athletes to aspire for positions in the national squad, stressing that kickboxing may soon found its way to the Olympics.
“We have grown big since we revitalized kickboxing in the country. It is already recognized by the International Olympic Committee and ang kasunod could be inclusion into the sports calendar, so you are looking at a bit future for kickboxing,” said Tolentino, who is also the president of the Philippine Olympic Committee.