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[av_heading heading=’Wushu champ offers win to ‘God, parents, coaches’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’18’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY JOANNE BERONA, Intern
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Tuesday, February 27, 2018
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SHUN Kervin Barretta believes he did not bag the gold medal in the 56kg category of secondary boys wushu in the 2018 WVRAA Meet all by himself.
Barretta is one of the gold medalists of Iloilo province, which bagged the overall secondary wushu boys and girls championship in the recently concluded regional tournament.
“My whole team and I offer this triumph to God, our parents, our coaches – especially our coach Sir Enriquito Pesado – our school, the people who supported us, and of course the whole of Iloilo,” Barretta tells Panay News.
All the pressure and difficulties they have gone through during training paid off, and he is more than happy that they are headed to the Palarong Pambansa, Barretta says.
Other gold medalists in secondary wushu on Feb. 20 at SM City Iloilo are Ghea Mae Gregorios (42kg), Maria Angelica Taliga (45kg), Angelica Saludares (52kg), and Ghemlie Luna (48kg) for girls, and Dave Daras (45kg) and Jerson Parreno (48kg) for boys.
Achieving – and maintaining – the required weight in his class is what Barretta considers his biggest challenge, not so much the actual fight.
“It’s (weight) very crucial,” he tells Panay News. “You cannot qualify to the competition at all if you don’t obtain the required weight for your category.”
The Negros fighters were a bit of a threat to him, Barretta says, noting that “they are strong,” which is also the reason he has “great respect for them.”
But constant motivation from Coach Pesado helped him overcome any uneasiness he felt around the athletes from the neighboring island.
Juggling his studies and training for the WVRAA was hard for the Grade 10 student of Jalandoni Memorial National High School.
“I had to go to school in the morning, and then to training after school. Training lasts until the evening,” he says. “It’s really tiring. You just have to manage your time well.”
That their time to prepare was barely a month and they had to step up as the competitions drew near did not make the training any easier. But all these were worth it, Barretta says.
He promises that they will train harder for the national games as they represent not only Iloilo but the entire Western Visayas this time./PN
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