Why confuse athletes?

It’s every athlete’s dream to scale the heights, one level at a time. For the Filipino national athlete, the pursuit of excellence on the international stage usually starts at the SEA Games then Asian Games and culminates at the Olympics. Aside from the World Championships, those are the three major competitions where athletes aspire to land a podium finish as incentives await the medalists by law.

But along the way, there are impediments that make the journey more challenging. A drawback is the lack of uniformity in weight divisions of certain sports. Boxing and weightlifting, for example, are two sports that cry out for a logical alignment. They also happen to be the weight-classified sports that deliver the highest probability of success for Filipino athletes at the Olympic level.

Let’s examine the situation in boxing. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 13 gold medals were at stake, eight for men and five for women. The men’s divisions were flyweight (52kg), featherweight (57kg), lightweight (63kg), welterweight (69kg), middleweight (75kg), lightheavyweight (81kg), heavyweight (91kg) and superheavyweight (+91kg). Carlo Paalam brought home a silver at flyweight and Eumir Marcial, a bronze at middleweight. The women’s divisions were flyweight (51kg), featherweight (57kg), lightweight (60kg), welterweight (69kg) and middleweight (75kg). Nesthy Petecio took the silver at featherweight. At the 2023 SEA Games, there were 16 gold medals up for grabs, 11 for men and five for women. The men’s divisions were lightflyweight (48kg), flyweight (51kg), bantamweight (54kg), featherweight (57kg), lightweight (60kg), lightwelterweight (63.5kg), welterweight (67kg), lightmiddleweight (71kg), lightheavyweight (80kg), cruiserweight (86kg) and