MANILA – Maritanya Krog in cycling and Pi Durden Wangkay and Naomi Marjorie Cesar in athletics are three of nine Filipino athletes who will be competing in the 4th Youth Olympics Games (YOG) in Senegal this October, Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino said on Thursday.
“They have been nominated by their respective national sports associations (NSAs) and we’re awaiting six more nominations,” Tolentino said on the sidelines of the inaugural Philippine National Speed Cubing Open 2026, which the POC is staging at the Tagaytay City Combat Sports Center in partnership with the Asian Mind Sports Association.
The International Olympic Committee, which organizes the quadrennial YOG that will be staged in Dakar on Oct. 31 to Nov. 13, has allocated nine Universitality Places for the Philippines. These are two athletes in athletics, one woman cyclist for road and individual time trial, one man and woman in artistic gymnastics, one man in windsurfing, one in women’s taijiquan combined in wushu, one in men’s 100 meters butterfly, and one in women’s 100 meters breaststroke in swimming. The YOG is for athletes aged 15 to 18.
Krog was nominated based on her sixth-place finish at the Asian Youth Games in Bahrain last year, on top of consistently winning gold medals at the Batang Pinoy and National Cycling Championships, and for finishing just outside the podium in the women’s elimination race in the Asian Cycling Confederation Track Championships at the Tagaytay CT Velodrome last March. “She has the potential, although we need to raise the level of her training program for Senegal,” said Tolentino, also the president of the PhilCycling.
Wangkay won the men’s 200 meters gold medal and Cesar clinched a silver medal in the girls’ 800 meters behind a Chinese in October 2025's Asian Youth Games in Bahrain. Wangkay also won gold in the same event at the Bangkok Southeast Asian Games in December 2025. Like Krog, Wangkay and Cesar are both 17.
