POC chief Tolentino to get regular funding for victorious PHL curlers

WITH curling finally getting full attention from the Philippines after the country’s historic performance in the Harbin Asian Winter Games, it’s now time to focus on the next important thing for it to be sustained — funding.

Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) President Abraham Tolentino on Sunday said they would ask no less than President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. himself to get regular funding for the victorious Filipino curlers, composed of Marc and Enrico Pfister and Christian Haller, Allen Frei and Benjo Delarmente who funded their own trip.

“They are paying for their own expenses, so we really need that financial support to sustain them for all their competitions. If we meet the President, we will make a request to support their journey to the Winter Olympics,” said the Tagaytay City mayor who hosted the media briefing of the Filipino curlers in his city.

The squad will get P2 million as incentives from the government for their effort and the amount should help defray the cost of the money they have been spending to fuel their campaign.

But it will not be enough though.

Curling Pilipinas has yet to get official funding from the government because it was only formed four years ago and got regular membership status from the Philippine Olympic Committee only last year.

Interestingly, the one who heads it is Mr. Delarmente himself — the alternate of that same national team that delivered the country its breakthrough gold and its highest finish at fifth in the quadrennial meet.

“I was very happy to do it, I love curling, I’m very passionate about curling and I believe Filipinos can excel at curling, which is a combination of billiards, bowling, chess and holen (marble),” said Mr. Delarmente, who said the group’s origin started 15 years ago when he and his vice-president Joselito Cruz started a Facebook chat group and tried to look for other Filipino curlers.

“It was supposed to be a group to connect with other Filipino curlers. Our long term goal was to establish curling as an NSA (national sports association) in the Philippines and promote it to the whole country,” said Mr. Delarmente.

Somewhere along the way, the group saw the Mr. Pfister siblings, who have Filipino roots, compete then for Switzerland in the World Cup in Las Vegas, Nevada and joked with them if they could represent the Philippines in the future.

Miraculously, Marc Pfister replied it’s a possibility.

And, as they say, the rest is history.

Mr. Delarmente said they’re now focusing on qualifying for the Winter Games in Milano Cortina, Italy, which he compared to like threading the proverbial eye of the needle.

“In 2024, after we won the gold medal in Division B of the Pan-Continental Championship, we earned an invitation to the pre-qualification event in October (2025). The top three there will go to the Olympic qualification event in December with the top two getting the final two slots to the (Winter) Olympics,” he said.

“We’ll have challenges, but we’re very confident our team will prevail.” — Joey Villar