The Philippine National Shooting Association is taking its best shot in the remaining qualifying tournaments for the Paris Olympics.
PNSA secretary general Iryne Garcia made the assurance Tuesday during the Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.
Garcia said the PSNA is trying to send the top Filipino shooters to each of the qualifying tournaments lined up for the Paris Games.
“We’ve been trying to join all the qualifying events,” said Garcia, who was joined at the forum by young shooters Amparo Acuna of rifle and Franchette Quiroz of pistol, who are both so close to making it to their first Olympics.
Garcia said PNSF president and Rep. Mike Dy is fully behind the shooters hoping to make it to Paris, including 2020 Tokyo Olympics veteran Jayson Valdez and Enrique Enriquez (skeet). The country’s other top shooters are Hagen Topacio (trap) and Bryan Rosario, who vied in skeet event of the 2012 London Olympics.
Acuna and Quiroz are bound for a rigid training in Germany next month before they head to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the ISSF World Olympic Qualification Tournament for rifle and pistol set April 11 to 19.
Then there’s the qualifiers for shotgun in Doha, Qatar from April 19 to 29 for the other Filipino hopefuls.
Last month, qualifying events for rifle, pistol and shotgun were staged in Jakarta and Kuwait. But the Filipinos who made it to the finals fell short of top two finishes that would have guaranteed them of tickets to Paris.
“But we must keep on trying because if the top two finishers in each event in the remaining qualifiers have already clinched the quota, it passes on to the other top finishers,” said Acuna, 26.
Quiroz, 27, said they’re training five days a week on the range and another day for physical training in between the competitions.
“Based on the rankings, we think we have a high chance. Mataas ang ranking ko and those above me, may quota na,” she said during the forum presented by San Miguel Corporation, Philippine Sports Commission, Philippine Olympic Committee, Milo, SMART/PLDT and ArenaPlus, the leading sports entertainment gateway in the Philippines.
Actually there’s a lot going on within the PNSF. We are going to host the Southeast Asian Shooting Championships this year after we won the bid in 2022. The last time we hosted the event was in 1997,” said Garcia.
“We also put up a committee for sports development. We really want to promote the grassroots program and hopefully we can tap even more talents and produce more. Then of course, there’s the Olympics,” she added.