Manila: For the first time in 24 years and after six straight Olympics, the Philippines will not have a shooter in the Rio de Janeiro Games in August, according to outgoing Philippine National Sports Association president Col. Danilo Gamboa.
“I was informed by a PNSA staff that the International Shooting Sport Federation formally notified the association last week that it did not award a wild card to the Philippines,” Gamboa, who resigned last week due to health reasons, was quoted as saying by Malaya.
As early as November last year the PNSA had reportedly applied for wild card slots for rifle shooters Jayson Valdez and Amparo Acuna and skeet shooter Hagen Topacio, who all received subsidies under the Olympic Solidarity program to help them compete in Olympic qualifying events.
Competing in ISSF World Cup competitions, both Valdez and Acuna met the Olympic minimum qualifying scores in their respective events but were still not given wild card slots while Topacio won a silver medal in the Asian shooting championships, an Olympic qualifying competition, in Kuwait last November, the report said.
Topacio, 26, would have earned an outright slot to Rio with his feat but the ISSF and the International Olympic Committee voided the results of the tourney when the Kuwaiti hosts barred a technical official from Israel in entering their country, said the news portal.
The stocky shooter, whose family is into the arms and ammunition industry, was forced to skip the new Asian Olympic shooting qualifiers in India because it coincided with an important business trip to the US, the news report said.
“There will be other Olympics, and the Zika virus is just too worrisome,” Topacio’s mother, Marie Jean, reportedly said, relieved that his son would not go to Rio.
“We were expecting that one of them would get a wild card but, unfortunately, the ISSF told us that it would not be awarding any so we will not have a shooter in the Rio Olympics,” Gamboa was quoted as saying by Malaya.
