It’s a big year for Eumir Marcial, and his schedule is booked up with intensive training sessions and matches as he aims to win another Olympic medal.
2024 marks a big year for Filipino athletes for one simple yet momentous reason: the Paris Olympics. This year, athletes from the Philippines will be looking to qualify for the Summer Games — the chance to represent the country, while facing some of the best athletes in the world. But for the few Filipino athletes who already qualified before the year started, it’s just a matter of waiting, and of course, preparing.
Filipino boxer Eumir Marcial qualified for the Paris Olympics when he entered the men’s 71-80kg finals in last year’s Asian Games. Having won a bronze medal in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, this is an opportunity not only for him to better his previous result, but to add to the Philippines’ list of Olympic medals.
Easier said than done, which is why Marcial is committing to intensive training for the coming months.
Preparing for Paris
Barely three weeks into 2024, and Eumir Marcial already kicked off his busy schedule preparing for the 2024 Olympics. Midway through January, he flew to the United States for an intensive training program. However, this is not just for his bouts in Paris; the boxer is also training for a fight in the Philippines in March.
As part of his build-up to Paris, Marcial will be fighting in his first professional match since he underwent surgery on his right hand last year. “This will stand as a build-up fight leading up to the Olympic games,” he shared on his Instagram.
While in the United States, Marcial has been pushing himself, running outdoors in the middle of winter, conditioning with world-class facilities, and training alongside other world champions from around the world.
This is just par for the course as Eumir Marcial himself admits that this will be one of the toughest competitions he’s going to be facing. On his Instagram, he wrote, “This campaign is one of the most challenging as I gear up to fight some of my strongest opponents in the Paris Olympics—10 of the world’s outstanding boxers in my weight class have qualified.
“There’s Arlen Lopez of Cuba (2-time Olympic gold medalist) who qualified after winning the gold medal in the Pan American Games, there’s Oleksandr Khyzkniak of Ukraine who qualified after winning the gold medal in the European Games, whom I have also fought against during the Tokyo Olympics semi-finals bout, and there’s Toqtarbek Tanatqan of China who won the gold medal in the Asian Games. Lastly, there’s also Callum Peters of Australia and Abdelrahman Oraby of Egypt who both won the gold medal in their respective continents.”
With this, it is evident that Eumir Marcial is going all in for his Paris 2024 Olympics journey.
Banner image from Eumir Marcial on Instagram.
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