Eric Cray leads Philippine bid in national athletics meet

ILAGAN CITY – Eric Cray leads members of the national team who will be tested to the fullest by foreign challengers in the 2018 Ayala Philippine National Open Invitational Athletics Championships, which goes full blast here on Thursday, May 31, at the sprawling Ilagan City Sports Complex.

Cray, a two-time Olympian, banners the list of track and field luminaries who will vie for over 150 gold medals at stake in the 5-day track and field spectacle.

The event is also part of the Philippine team’s preparations for the Asian Games in Indonesia in August and the 30th Southeast Asian Games next year.

Competition officially begins Thursday at 5 a.m. with the 10,000 meters (women), and the shotput (men) and high jump (women) at 6 a.m.

The Texas-based Cray, once the fastest man in Southeast Asia, is already in this sun-baked city and is expected to formally register his entry together with his fellow national team mainstays Fil-Am 4×100 specialist Trenten Beram, long jump queen Marestella Torres-Sunang, decathlete star Aries Toledo and triple jumper Mark Harry Diones, among others.

“We expect our athletes to match or break their personal and season bests. To make it more enticing, incentives of P20,000 to P100,000 await athletes who can shatter Philippine records,” said Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) president Dr. Philip Ella Juico.

But standing in the way of the national athletes are crack athletes from the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia and Sabah, who are using the games to tune up for the 18th Asian Junior Athletics Championships in Gifu, Japan on June 7 to 10.

“It is already hot in Gifu, so this is a perfect training ground for these visitors, who I am sure, will be going all out to test their own mettle for the coming Asian Juniors,” added Juico.

One of the highlights of the trackfest, which used to be known as the National Athletics Open, is the Masters’ Competition.

“Some 800 to 900 athletes will be coming over. It is a big list, considering there is a Masters’ and Junior Division, making it truly an open competition,” said Juico of the trackfest presented by the City of Ilagan and backed by Ayala Corporation, Milo and the Philippine Sports Commission.

All national team athletes are expected to join, with the exception of pole vault specialist EJ Obiena, who is currently training in Formia, Italy under Ukrainian coach Vitaly Petrov.

Obiena – who appears to have already recovered from an ACL injury that forced him to skip the SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur – holds a national record of 5.61 meters, which he set at the 2017 Stabhochsprung Classic in Germany. That mark is good for an Asian Games gold.

A colorful opening ceremony ushered the start of the PH Open, attended by Patafa officials, Mayor Evelyn Diaz, and overall event coordinator and  former Mayor Jose Marie Diaz.

Singing sensation Morisette Amon wowed the crowd with a mini concert to open the nightly entertainment spectacle at the sports complex, with Bamboo concluding the show on June 4.

Cray, who lost the men’s 100-meter race to Malaysian Khairul Hafiz Jantan during last year’s SEA Games, is aching to rebound from that heartbreak.

The Rio Olympics veteran – who entered the century dash barely an hour after taking part in the men’s 400-meter hurdles finals, where he narrowly retained his title by holding off Vietnamese upstart Quach Cong Lich – settled for the 100-m silver in 10.43 seconds to Jantan’s 10.38 seconds.

He vowed to regain the title as the region’s fastest man in next year’s SEA Games, which the Philippines will host. His journey for redemption starts in the PH Open. – Rappler.com