Ang Kalatas Volume IV September 2014 Issue | Page 24

24 SPORTS Chiara looks to SEA Games STRATHFIELD equestrian Chiara Amor may represent the Philippines at the 28th South East Asian Games in June next year. By Marilie Bomediano CHIARA, show-jumping champion at 16 and a student at Strathfield’s Santa Sabina College, looks forward to winning a medal at the Games in Singapore and then making a run for a spot in the Philippines’ 2016 Olympic Games team in Rio, Brazil. Her coach Mikaela ‘Mikee’ Cojuangco-Jaworski, who has charted Chiara’s success as a show-jumper, said diligent training has been bearing championship results lately. At the Concourse de Saut International – Young Riders-Borrowed Horses in Singapore in March, Chiara bagged two gold medals: one for the CSIY-B friendship and another for the CSIY-B individual show-jumping with a time of 55.97s ~ 0.2s faster than Singapore’s Nicola Hammond. She beat 17 top riders from the Asean region, including some who had recently won medals or placed at the major Asian region events. Chiara developed an attack of nerves when her mount Percy twisted its legs away from the third fence.  “I was really nervous going through,” she said. “But I tried to remember to breathe a bit, to get along with the horse, and to relax, the best thing I have ever learned from my coach-mentor who has known me since I was 10. I consider her as my adoptive mother.” THE MESSAGE. BRINGING INTO FOCUS FILIPINO PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA www.kalatas.com.au | Volume 4 Number 12 | September 2014