THE Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association won’t be missing the honor roll list of the Philippine Sportswriters Association Annual Awards Night presented by San Miguel and MILO at the LE PAVILLON next week.
For adopting a sound program that netted three Filipino tracksters making it to the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics, Patafa was chosen by the country’s oldest media organization as its National Sports Association of the Year during its Feb. 13 event co-presented by CIGNAL/HYPHER HD.
Eric Shaun Cray, Marestella Torres-Sunang, and Mary Joy Tabal all met the qualifying standards needed to earn berths to the Rio Games and ensured the most number of tracksters the country had in the quadrennial meet in recent years,
Patafa had been previously named NSA of the Year by the PSA twice, the last of which was in 2009 when the federation delivered seven gold medals during the Southeast Asian Games in Laos.
Previous winners of the award include the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, Philippine Taekwondo Association, Wushu Federation of the Philippines, Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines, Philippine Aquatics Sports Association and the Philippine Dragonboat Association, among others.
It will be a double celebration for Patafa as its president Philip Ella Juico will be bestowed the Executive of the Year award in the same gala night with Smart, Philippine Sports Commission, Phoenix Petroleum, Gold Toe, Foton, ICTSI, Globalport, Mighty Sports, and Rain or Shine as major sponsors.
A total of 92 personalities and entities make up this year’s list of awardees for the two-hour program backed by the Philippine Basketball Association, SM Prime Holdings Inc., ACCEL, MVP Sports Foundation, PCSO, NLEX, Meralco, and Federal Land.
Rio De Janeiro Olympic silver medalist Hidilyn Diaz is the consensus choice as the 2016 PSA Athlete of the Year.