The emergence of a new variant of the coronavirus has pushed back plans to have members of the national athletics' team go into physical training this week.
The tracksters were supposed to go into a training camp bubble at the New Clark City Athletics stadium for two months beginning Monday.
Instead, the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association, led by its president Dr. Philip Ella Juico, will go on with the workouts in the first week of February.
“It was supposed to start the other day. But because of the documentary requirements that emerged because of the new COVID-19 variant, our athletes will have to undergo swabbing seven times,” said Juico on Zoom.
Juico said this on the occasion of the launch of the Fineguard Sport National Half-Marathon Virtual Challenge, a 21-km distance event from Feb. 22 to 28.
Designed for participants, who are at home during the pandemic, it will be a weeklong event that can be done indoors or outdoors.
Fineguard is the same brand being used by Tokyo Olympics-bound Ernest “EJ” Obiena in his regular training.
This also the Official Performance Mask of the Athletics' Philippine Team.
Fineguard president and CEO Jim Lafferty also talked about their sponsorship of the national team with PATAFA marketing and communication chief Edward Kho and Fineguard executive Lizette de Guzman.
Runners seeing action in the half marathon can do their running on a treadmill or on the road by themselves, or one continuous session of running within the day and at any time during a 24-hour period.
If participants opt to do their running outdoors, they may choose their own course, from the starting point and finishing stop
