EUMIR FELIX MARCIAL was at the comfort of home in Zamboanga City on Tuesday but one of his first stops didn’t border on being happy at all—he visited his late brother’s grave at a local cemetery.
Marcial, his father Eulaleo and his late brother’s son Euwie Jay Marcial, paid their respects to Eliver at the Forest Lake Tumaga Memorial Park. The eldest Marcial died of cardiac arrest in October last year, two days after the Tokyo Olympics-bound boxer flew to Los Angeles to start training as a pro at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym.
“It breaks my heart, but that’s the way life goes,” said Marcial, who arrived from Los Angeles Tuesday last week but had to complete six days of quarantine at the Marine Base in Ternate, along with trainer and manager Joven Jimenez, sparring partner Jonas Sultan and International Boxing Federation super flyweight champion Jerwin Ancjacas.
Marcial will stay home with his fiancée Princess for at least two weeks in Barangay Lunzuran, but will continue to train with Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (Abap) coach Gerson Nietes monitoring his progress.
Marcial said he hopes to compete in the Asian Elite Men and Women Boxing Championships which were transferred to Dubai from New Delhi because of the rampant Covid-19 infections in India.
The Abap is contemplating of sending the national team—including Olympic qualifiers Irish Magno, Nesthy Petecio and Carlo Paalam—to the May 21 to June 1 Dubai tournament, which is a must for the Filipino boxers to gauge their preparedness for Tokyo.
“That tournament [Dubai] is very important for me to see how prepared I am for Tokyo,” Marcial said.
“My priority now is to keep on training and sparring,” said Marcial, who already got two shots of Pfizer vaccines in Las Vegas. “It’s not a bubble type training because we have lenient quarantine guidelines here.”
Marcial will train at the Zamboanga Valientes-MLV Gym also in Zamboanga City.