Olympic-bound Irish Magno to make full use of training ‘bubble’
By Michael Angelo S. Murillo, Senior Reporter
TOKYO Olympics-bound boxer Irish Magno is looking to make up for lost time as her preparation for the Games was disrupted by the coronavirus last year.
Speaking on Tiebreaker Vods’ So She Did! podcast from their training “bubble” at INSPIRE Sports Academy in Laguna on Sunday, Ms. Magno said it was a welcome development to return to face-to-face training after months of settling for virtual and individual workouts since various quarantine setups prohibited close contacts.
It is an opportunity that Iloilo fighter Magno intends to make full use of it since the Olympic Games is just less than two hundred days away.
“I’m very thankful that we have this bubble after months of limited training,” 28-year-old Magno said in Filipino.
“Here we can prepare better for the Olympics and the qualifiers. I’m putting my trust in our coaches as far as how the training would go. From my end, I am going to do what I need to do and make up for lost time in training,” she added.
Ms. Magno was joined on the podcast as a guest by fellow national team member Nesthy Petecio.
The two are part of some 60 national team members from boxing, taekwondo, and karate who entered the INSPIRE bubble last weekend.
They are expected to be holed up there for the next couple of months to jack up their training for the Olympics and the qualifiers.
Ms. Magno said at the moment, they are in room quarantine as part of the strict safety protocols issued by the Philippine Sports Commission to ensure the integrity of the bubble, but once allowed to start training she will immediately buckle down to work.
The atomweight boxer booked a spot in the rescheduled Olympics in March last year at the Asia and Oceania Olympic Boxing Qualification Tournament in Amman, Jordan.
She beat Tajikistan’s Sumaiya Qosimova by unanimous decision in their box-off to earn the last Olympic spot in her division.
Ms. Magno was relegated to the box-off after being defeated earlier in the qualifiers by Mary Kom of India.
“I’m just thankful I had the chance to redeem myself. I listened to my coaches and took it from there,” she said.
Ms. Magno was the second Filipino boxer to qualify for the Tokyo Games after middleweight Eumir Felix Marcial, who booked his spot also in the Jordan qualifiers.
Mr. Marcial is currently training in the United States under famed boxing coach Freddie Roach as the former is also a pro fighter under Manny Pacquiao’s MP Promotions.
