The team hopes to maintain or surpass its two-gold, one-silver, one-bronze medal haul in the 31stedition last year.
Olympian Elreen Ando banners SEAG-bound weightlifting team
Apr 16, 2023 05:52 AM
At a glance
Tokyo Olympian Elreen Ando will banner the Philippine weightlifting team that will see action in the 32ndSoutheast Asian Games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia next month.
Tokyo Olympian Elreen Ando will compete in the lower weight category of 59kg in the 32nd Southeast Asian Games. (File Photo/Elreen Ando's Facebook page)
A silver medalist in the 64kg division of the previous SEAG edition in Vietnam, Ando will move to a lower weight class and try her luck in the women’s 59kg.
Joining Ando in the women’s field are Vanessa Sarno, Angeline Colonia, Lovely Inan and Rosalindo Faustino.
Sarno aims to defend her gold medal in the 71kg, while Colonia and Inan compete in the 45kg and 49kg. Faustino, for her part, will battle in the 55kg division – the same weight category where Olympic champion Hidilyn Diaz won the SEAG gold medal.
Diaz, however, will be skipping this year’s biennial meet as it coincides with her participation in a qualifying tournament for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The 2023 Asian Weightlifting Championships will run from May 3 to 13 in South Korea, while the SEAG will be held from May 5 to 17.
Meanwhile, the men’s SEAG team is composed of John Febuar Ceniza, Dave Lloyd Pacaldo and John Dexter Tabigue.
Ceniza and Pacaldo will compete in the 61kg and 67kg, while Tabigue will see action in the 89kg.
Accompanying the nine athletes are coaches Antonio Agustin Jr., Samuel Alegada, Edumundo Jose Cardano and Diwa Delos Santos, with Samahang Weightlifting ng Pilipinas president Monico Puentevella acting as the delegation head.
Puentevella hopes the team will maintain or surpass its two-gold, one-silver, one-bronze medal haul in the 31stedition last year as far as recent performances from the athletes are concerned.
Colonia and Faustino boast of one gold and one silver medal, respectively, in the recent International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Youth World Championships in Durres, Albania.
Though not recent, the trio of Sarno, Ando and Macrohon, meanwhile, teamed up for two gold, three silver and three bronze medals in the Asian Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2021.