Filipino boxer Eumir Felix Marcial is set to fly directly to Los Angeles on Tuesday to resume his training for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Marcial is in good spirits even after a losing campaign in the 2021 Asian Boxing Confederation Asian Elite Men and Women Boxing Championship in Dubai, where he was blanked, 0-5, in the semifinals by non-Olympic participant Jafarov Saidjamshid of Uzbekistan.
He settled for the bronze and the $25,000 purse.
“I felt sad after hearing the decision, but I am okay now. I am not going to return to the Philippines after Dubai. I will be heading directly to the US on June 1,” said Marcial on Sunday from Le Meridien’s Grand Ballroom Hotel in Dubai.
International matchmaker and Manny Pacquiao’s MP Promotions President Sean Gibbons also said hat Marcial could train and spar for the meantime at the Wildcard gym in Los Angeles under the tutelage of Freddie Roach, while waiting for instructions from the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines.
“So far, I am just waiting now for the instruction of ABAP while I am in the United States,” Marcial added.
Marcial admitted he learned a lot from his experience in Dubai and vowed to come back stronger in the Olympics set on July 23 to August 8.
“I have to adjust and improve more my ways [of fighting], I think more on my tactics,” said Marcial. “In terms of stamina and power punches, I got it. I will do whatever I can to win the gold in the Olympics for the country, for my father Eulalio, for my late elder brother Eliver and for my fiancée Princess.”
Marcial was supposed to join fellow Olympic boxers light flyweight Carlo Paalam, women’s flyweight Irish Magno and featherweight Nesthy Petecio in Thailand, but was called off due to visa issues and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gibbons said the ABAP is planning a multi-nation boxing training camp for Marcial in the United States Olympic Boxing Training Center in Colorado Springs for the last stage of his preparations for Tokyo. There, Marcial will join six American Olympic qualifiers and several other boxers from other countries.
ABAP is also now trying to figure out a way to send Petecio, Magno and Paalam and their coaches to the Colorado camp, if USA Boxing agrees.