A STRENGTH and conditioning coach, who helped an athlete from Hong Kong win a bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympics was named as the national training director.
Philippine Sports Commission Chairman William “Butch” Ramirez named Marc Edward Velasco to head the newly formed national training center, which will monitor the training of elite athletes and kids joining national competitions at the grassroots’ level as well.
The training center which Velasco will head will have 16 regional offices, patterned after the Australian Institute of Sports and the English Institute of Sports in the United Kingdom.
“Marc deserves to be the national training director. He sacrificed his work in Hong Kong, coming here to help Filipino athletes. Yes, it’s a big role,” said Ramirez during the 2-day top-level meeting on the master plan for Philippine sports at the Sheraton Hotel.
Velasco, who used to be with the Philippine Center for Sports Medicine, has been in Hong Kong for eight years, working for the Hong Kong Institute of Sports. He later got a job with the HK Rugby Union before the call to return home came.
During his stint in the HKIS, an athlete he is training, track cyclist Sarah Lee Wai Sze snared a bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympics.
Velasco, who made a presentation after he was introduced during the consultative meeting, said the NTC will take over the functions of the Philippine Center for Sports Medicine when it becomes operational by October.
“This will be a better version (of the PCSM). It has a more comprehensive and scientific approach, and a team of specialists to support the need of athletes,” said Velasco.
The PCSM, he said, will be renamed as the Elite Athlete Services Unit.
Lee’s bronze-medal finish gave Hong Kong their first-ever Olympic medal in a cycling event.