BAGUIO CITY (PIA) – Cordilleran boxer Hergie Tao-wag Bacyadan brings pride to Kalinga and the country as she qualifies for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Bacyadan who hails from Taloctoc, Tanudan in Kalinga, secured an Olympic spot after defeating Venezuela’s Maryelis Yriza at the 2nd World Boxing Olympic Qualification Tournament in Bangkok, Thailand on June 2.
The Kalinga native punched her ticket to a unanimous decision win in the women’s 75-kilogram or middleweight category.
She needed three wins to book her Paris ticket. She celebrated her victory by doing the traditional taddok dance at the ring.
Bacyadan is the fifth Filipino boxer to earn a ticket to the Olympics in Paris.
She will be joining fellow boxers Carlo Paalam, Eumir Marcial, Nesthy Petecio, and Aira Villegas in Paris, France in the Philippines’ biggest boxing delegation to the Olympics since the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Of the five boxers who will be representing the country in the Paris Olympics, Bacyadan and three others are University of Baguio students or alumni including Petecio and Paalam who earned silver medals in the Tokyo Olympics while Marcial took home bronze.
Her fellow boxer and a first time Olympics qualifier Villegas is a native of Tacloban.
Bacyadan is also the fourth Cordilleran to earn an Olympics slot after track and field athlete Hector Begeo, judoka Jerry Dino, and taekwondo djinn Kurt Barbosa.
The Mountain Province born Begeo was in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympics, while Dino was in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Barbosa from Bangued, Abra qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Meanwhile, two wushu sanda players, Mariane Mariano and Benjie Rivera, were in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. They won bronze medals but wushu was a demonstration sport then. (RMC, PIA-CAR)
