Philippine karate team to start Baguio bubble on January 17 to prep for SEA Games

After several delays, the Philippine karate team will finally be able to start its preparations for the 2021 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games kicking off on May 12 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

According to Karate Pilipinas president Ricky Lim, almost 75 percent of the national team will enter a training bubble at the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) compound in Teachers Camp in Baguio on January 17, Monday.

The other batch, according to Lim, remains in isolation due to contact with COVID-19 positive cases but will also plunge into bubble training after a week.

"I asked commissioner [Ramon] Fernandez if we can continue with the training in Baguio and he said yes so we are good to go. And anyway, we are inside a bubble so there won't be any problem," Lim told GMA News Online in an interview.

"The sooner that we transfer them to Baguio, the better. That's because most of the cases are in Manila so we don't want to risk their health."

Karate Pilipinas originally scheduled the training last January 5 but pushed it back to January 12 to give some karatekas enough time to recuperate following an intense tournament at the 2021 Asian Karate Championships held in Kazakhstan in December.

During that competition, SEA Games gold medalists Junna Tsukii and Jamie Lim finished with silvers in their respective categories while Sakura Alforte took home two bronze medals. John Enrico Vasquez also bagged bronze in U21 kata male.

Lim said they were prompted to move the date anew to January 17 as PSC-designated drivers won't be able to transport the team due to COVID-19 transmissions.

"So what we did in Karate Pilipinas, we were the ones who arranged the transportation of the national team on the 17th  because we really wanted to start with this bubble training the soonest," he shared.

Lim added that they are also eyeing to attend a month-long training and tournament in Turkey on March 15 but said due to a limited budget, they might be forced to cancel the planned foreign trip.

Despite this, Lim remained positive that Filipino karatekas set to compete in the biennial meet can deliver podium finishes as the Philippines eyes to defend its overall championship.

After all, 12 of the country's 387 medal haul in the 2019 edition came from the karate team.

"We intend to improve our performance, especially our two gold medalists. And we still have other players who performed well in the Asian Championships so I think we're looking great," said Lim.

"But we have to be focused and be serious about this bubble training."

—JMB, GMA News