KUALA LUMPUR – Veteran international campaigners Ian Clark Bautista and Eumir Felix Marcial try to secure a pair of bronze medals when they clash with separate foes in the boxing competition of the 29th Southeast Asian Games Sunday at the MITEC Hall 8 here.
Bautista, the 22-year old pride of Binalbagan, Negros Occidental, will kick off the national boxers’ campaign when he battles Abdul Salam B. Kasim of Malaysia in the quarterfinals of the flyweight division while Marcial faces Nguyen Mang Cuong of Vietnam in the quarterfinals of the middleweight class.
The third Filipino boxer who will see action for the day is Mario Fernandez.
Two-time SEA Games gold medalist will have to take the long route as he starts his campaign in the preliminaries against Maung Nge of Myanmar in the bantamweight class.
“Malampasan sana natin ang mga una nating kalaban and, hopefully, they all make it to the semis,” said Alliance of Boxing Association of the Philippines executive director Ed Picson.