By Jerome S. Galunan Jr.

Philippine boxing national head coach Nolito Velasco hailed the successful gold medal campaign of Fil-British John Marvin Tupas and Eumir Marcial in the 29th Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as a big motivation for the country’s foray in international stage.

Tupas stopped Malaysia’s Adli Hafidz Mohd Pauzi in 21 seconds to claim the light heavyweight division’s gold medal ,while Marcial outscored his Thai counterpart Pathomsak Kuttiya to rule the middleweight division.
“I’m very thankful for the performances of our boxers. We trained hard and it all paid off. But we cannot control the judges’ and the referees’ decisions due to the pressure and the home-crowd impact,” Velasco said.
Velasco added, they kept reminding their boxers almost every day that they have to throw as much punches as they can when they fight – especially when they’re in the opponent’s turf.
“But I think only Marvin (Tupas) does it in the actual fight,” Velasco said.
The national team now returns to training in preparation for next year’s Asian Games in Indonesia, the 2019 SEA Games which the Philippines will host, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics./WDJ