WORLD Junior Wushu gold medalist Alieson Ken Omengan will spearhead the campaign of the country, with Manila hosting the 7th Asian Junior Wushu Championships starting August 8.
Omengan, who won the gold mint in the men’s Nanquan, is among the country’s hopeful in the weeklong junior meet bannered by upstarts from Baguio and Benguet.
After a fruitful training in China last month, Omengan, together with Faith Liana Andaya, who copped silver during the World Wushu Meet last year, the team is back in Manila to cap their training in time for the Asian meet.
Also in the team are Vanessa Joe Chan, Joel Casem and Christian Nicolas Lapitan, all from Baguio.
Omengan who will compete in his favorite Nanquan event, Nandao, and Nangun; Chan for Changquan, Jianshu and Quiangshu; Joel Casem for Changquan and Gun; Lapitan for Sanluquan and elementary Daoshu; and Andaya for the Sanluquan and elementary Jianshu.
Jean Claude Saclag and Divine Wally will also wear the country’s colors in the Sanshou or Sanda event.
Saclag has been training for kickboxing and taekwondo under his older brother, Jude Saclag, before he practiced and entered the Wushu Varsity Team of the University of the Cordilleras during college.
After competing in several Wushu competitions in Baguio and Benguet, including the Team Lakay Wushu-Xanda and MMA Eliminations, Saclag joined the Philippine Wushu Team in 2012.
Wally, on the other hand, was also a former UC Wushu Varsity Team member before joining the Philippine Wushu Team.
The country’s hosting of the tournament featuring 38 countries, also got a big boost as President Benigno Aquino ordered Proclamation 554 declaring August 2013 as the “Philippine Wushu Month.”
Since it was first played in the 1991 Southeast Asia Games, the country’s national Wushu team has already won a total of 93 gold medals in various international tournaments. And by aiming for a possible seven gold medal haul during the five-day Asian junior tilt, the Wushu federation hopes to reach the century mark by August.
In case the 100th gold medal remains elusive here, Dumuk said the association hopes to accomplish it in the World Wushu Championships in Kuala Lumpur by October.
By December, it’s off to Myanmar for the Filipino Wushu bets where they hope to equal if not surpass the two gold, four silver, and three bronze medals they won in the 2011 edition of the meet in Indonesia, despite efforts of the organizers to trim the number of sanda events where the country stands a chance to win several golds.