TEAM Lakay head coach Mark Sangiao is pleased that One Championship chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong has noticed the performance of his son and student Jhanlo.
The younger Sangiao scored a first-round stoppage of LA Lauron via rear-naked choke in their clash at nearly two weeks ago.
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Sangiao became the first Filipino to get a US$50,000 bonus (around P2.7 million) from Sityodtong, who said that the Filipino is World Champion material at the post-event press conference.
The veteran coach says it’s going to take a lot of work to get his son to where he needs to be.
“I’m very happy for that. They can see the potential of Jhanlo. As a father, I can also see that he’s a future World Champion, but at the end of the day, that depends on him,” he said.
“I believe teamwork is needed. He can be a great athlete, but he can have a great coach [and] not [be up to par].”
Although Jhanlo and Jeremy Pacatiw went home victorious, it was a somber night for Team Lakay because five of its athletes lost.
Coach Sangiao knows all about nights like these, especially since he’s gone through the pain of losing all of their matches in one card before.
“Before this, [it] happened already. We’ve lost, we’ve had five losses and zero wins in an event before. This is not new to us. But the important thing is we have two who at least won,” he said.
“I think we have to sit down and talk about lapses again. With every competition, every loss and every win, there are consequences for every mistake, so we have to discuss those mistakes and try to improve.”
Sangiao is confident in his squad’s future.
“Again, in Team Lakay we always learn, we upgrade, we work on what needs to be improved. This is always what I’m telling my athletes – to keep on working hard, work hard and work smart,” he said.
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