The Philippines will send 20 athletes to the ninth edition of the Asian Winter Games, set for February 7-14 in the winter resort city of Harbin, China.
Their mission is to set the stage for a possible medal in the 2026 Winter Olympics.
“We’ve already accomplished the dream in the Summer Olympics,” said Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) President Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino. “And that dream, we want to also achieve in the Winter Olympics.”
Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz delivered the Philippines’ first-ever Olympic gold in the Tokyo Games in 2021, and Carlos Yulo won two golds in men’s artistic gymnastics in Paris last year.
There are no available records as to how many Filipino winter sports athletes competed in the first eight editions of the Asian Winter Games, but Tolentino believes that the team to Harbin is the biggest so far.
“Our athletes are competing in six of the 11 sports on the Harbin program,” he added.
Curling, now one of the most-watched winter sports discipline, will have the most number of athletes in Harbin with 10 athletes— Marc Angelo Pfister, Enrico Gabriel Pfister, Christian Patrick Haller, Alan Beat Frei, Jessica Pfister, Benjo Delarmente, Kathleen Dubberstein, Leilani Dubberstein, Sheila Mariano and Anne Marie Bonache.
The Curling Winter Sports of the Philippines was established late last year to organize the discipline’s ranks with the new group joining Philippine Skating Union and Philippine Ski and Snowboarding Association in the POC roster.
The other members of Team Philippines managed by chef de mission Richard Lim are Paolo Borromeo, Aleksandr Korovin, Cathryn Limketkai, Isabella Marie Gamez and Sofia Lexi Jacqueline Frank in figure skating; Francis Ceccarelli and Talullah Proulx in Alpine skiing; Laetaz Amihan Rabe in freestyle skiing; Peter Joseph Groseclose in short track speed skating and Adrian Tongco in snowboarding
“The Winter Olympics are as extremely tough as the Summer Olympics, but we have proven that it could be done,” said Tolentino.
The Winter Olympics are as extremely tough as the Summer Olympics, but we have proven that it could be done.
Sixty-four events will be contested in Harbin, which was host in 1996, the second time after Changchun 2007 where China first organized the games.
Japan has been the dominant team in the games, followed by China and Kazakhstan.
