Paris Olympics berth up for grabs in Asia-Oceania OQT

FUJAIRAH, United Arab Emirates – Filipino fencers Nathaniel Perez, Noelito Jose, Hanniel Abella and Samantha Catantan gun for seats in the Paris Olympics as they see action in the Asia-Oceania Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) on Saturday and Sunday, April 27 and 28 at the Zayed Sports Complex here.

Perez and Catantan will compete in the men’s and women’s foil, while Jose and Abella will play in the men’s and women’s epee. There are no Filipino participants in the sabre event. All four have participated in the Asian OQT back in 2021 when Tashkent, Uzbekistan hosted the meet for the Tokyo Olympics.

In that OQT, Catantan went as far as the semifinal round, but she lost to Yana Alborova of Uzbekistan, who was naturalized from Russia, 15-10.“More than anything, I’m very excited to fence and honored to compete alongside my teammates representing the Philippines to try to make our dreams turn to reality,” said the 22-year-old Catantan.

“Looking back at the past 10 months, I had doubts about my abilities to make it (back here)… but now here I am grateful for this chance and opportunity,” added the graduating accounting student-athlete of Penn State University.

Catantan, the former high school fencing star and champion with the University of the East in the UAAP and QCSep Fencing Team product under the sports program of Quezon City District 1 councilor Joseph Juico, is expected to go up against Korea’s Sena Hong and Uzbekistan’s Umida Ilyosova.

That same year, Catantan bagged the gold medal in the Vietnam Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, but two years later she suffered a left knee injury during the semifinals of the 2023 Cambodia SEA Games, a torn ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) that required surgery.

She recovered and went on to finish 10th overall in the US NCAA Fencing Championship.

Perez, on the other hand, had a solid pre-OQT program abroad as he joined the Grand Prix in Washington D.C. and had a training camp stint at the Bluegrass Fencers’ Club in Lexington, Kentucky.

As for Jose, he participated in the Bern World Cup in Switzerland last November, the Vancouver World Cup in Canada, the Doha Grand Prix in Qatar last January, the Heidenheim World Cup in Germany last February and the Budapest Grand Prix in Hungary last March.

It was during the Heidenheim World Cup where Jose had his best showing as he placed 118th overall out of 349 fencers. After his participation in Budapest, he went to Korea where Abella joined him as they had a month-long training camp under former Asian Games gold medalist Park Sang-Sun.

Park was with the national team that helped the women’s epee team win the gold medal during the 2019 SEA Games here. Now he plays a crucial role again as he tries to improve the skills of Abella and Jose, and guide the two as he joins the team here in the OQT.

Filipino fencers, from left, Noelito Jose, Nathaniel Perez, Samantha Catantan and Hanniel Abella prepare to go to training on Friday, April 26, in preparation for the Asia-Oceania Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) at the Zayed Sports Complex here.