GYMNASTICS Association of the Philippines (GAP) president Cynthia Carrion vowed to fight for more funding in 2025 to keep the momentum of Carlos Yulo’s Olympic success going across the sport's six disciplines.
The national gymnastics chief looked back on the 62-year-old federation’s journey from the time they essentially had ‘zero budget’ all the way to the unprecedented highs of a double-gold haul in Paris last year.
READ: Carlos Yulo eyes repeat in 2028 LA Olympics after historic year
“From the days when we were, let’s say zero, now we’re at 20 [million pesos]. I now want to go to 50,” Carrion said in an interview after GAP was named the National Sporting Association of 2024 by the Philippine Sportswriters Association in its annual awards night on Monday.
“That’s why I went to the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) to defend my budget of P78 million and I hope that I can get it.”
Excluding Olympic-related expenditures, GAP received an annual budget of P31 million from the PSC's P1.156-billion allocation in the 2024 national budget under the General Appropriations Act.
Should Carrion’s proposal be granted, it would entail roughly a 152 percent increase from what GAP received in 2024 as the PSC is set to receive a budget allocation near the same region it did last year.
The central thrust of Carrion’s budget proposal goes beyond supporting Yulo in his golden repeat bid in Los Angeles in 2028.
More than anything, the GAP president seeks to provide adequate resources for the country’s gymnasts, men and women, across the sport’s six disciplines: aerobic, acrobatic, artistic, parkour, rhythmic and trampoline.
“This (budget proposal) is only for 2025. It’s because I got six disciplines and it’s like six sports,” said Carrion.
“Others are complaining to me. They’re saying ‘how come you are not taking care of the women, in the artistic, in the rhythmic, the others, and that I'm only concentrating on our men?
“This job of gymnastics is not easy.”
To keep the momentum going for Philippine gymnastics, Carrion has put a premium on increased international exposure in 2025 by joining ‘a lot of World Cups and training camps' to ramp up preparations for the 33rd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Thailand later this year.
Also planned for Yulo this year are overseas camps in places like Great Britain, South Korea, Japan and the US.
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