MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Manny Pacquiao won’t compete in the Paris Olympics according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) due to age restrictions.
The IOC emphasized the 40-year-old age limit for athletes competing in the Olympics in response to a letter from the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) late last year requesting the former senator’s stay in Paris.
Pacquiao is forty-five years old already.
In the same sentence, if Pacquiao had fulfilled the age requirement, he would have had to go through qualifiers in order to be eligible for the Olympics. At the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year, Eumir Felix Marcial won silver in the light heavyweight division.
“Too bad our beloved boxing icon is disqualified because of his age and that everyone needs to go through qualifiers, in all sports, to be able to participate in Paris,” POC president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino said in a news release on Sunday.
The POC sent a letter to James McLeod, the IOC’s Director of National Olympic Committee Relations, requesting that Pacquiao be permitted to box in Paris.
“The only valid boxing qualification system for Paris 2024 is the one approved by the IOC Executive Board in September 2022 published and distributed to NOCs and boxing national federations on 6 December 2022,” McLeod said in his letter.
“This includes the age limit of 40,” McLeod added.
Pacquiao, too, couldn’t make Paris under the Universality rule.
“The Universality places for the Olympic Games will not be allocated to NOCs with an average of more than eight [08] athletes in individual sports/disciplines at the last two editions of the Olympic Games [Rio and Tokyo],” Mcleod said.
17 competitors from the Philippines competed in individual sports in Tokyo, where Hidilyn Diaz Naranjo won the nation’s first gold medal in the Olympics, Carlo Paalam and Nesthy Petecio took home silver medals, and Marcial took home a bronze in boxing.
Ernest John “EJ” Obiena, the world’s second-ranked pole vaulter, Marcial, and artistic gymnasts Carlos Yulo and Aleah Finnegan are the four Filipinos who have qualified for Paris thus far.
Keep Reading: San Miguel Beermen clinch 29th PBA Commissioner’s Cup Championship
Leave a Reply