GAVIN MacMILLAN IS PACQUIAO'S NEW CONDITIONING COACH
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 18 Oct 2013
GENERAL SANTOS CITY ? One of the main ingredients lacking in Manny Pacquiao?s preparations for his coming fight with American Brandon Rios was believed to have been solved with the expected arrival next week of one of the top five elite trainers in the world to handle the Filipino icon?s conditioning requirements.
The Filipino ring icon?s Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach told this writer that Gavin MacMillan, acknowledged as a seven-sport athlete and the guy who only recently revived the career of Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto, will arrive Tuesday to assume the job originally belonged to Justin Fortune.
Fortune was earlier contracted by Team Pacquiao but failed to arrive as scheduled two Sundays ago for still unexplained reasons.
Meanwhile, after almost five weeks of training camp at the Pacman Wild Card Gym here, the last seven days under Roach, Pacman got a well-deserved respite after Roach canceled Wednesday?s training session.
?Manny needs a rest following that hectic four months and a-half torture he put himself in,? Roach told this writer. ?He?s been working too hard and we don?t want him to incur unnecessary injury that might hamper his preparations.?
Training session resumed though Thursday with Pacquiao taking on Irish middleweight Liam Vaughan, Ghanaian light-welterweight Fredrick Lawson and local counterpart Dan Nazareno in separate sparring encounters at the Wild Card Gym.
?He?s a good guy,? Roach described MacMillan, who he said will be flying in with his Filipino assistant trainer Marvin Somodio from Denver after the duo would have also worked the corner of Ruslan Provodnikov in his showdown with Mike Alvarado this coming Saturday for the World Boxing Organization junior welterweight crown.
Macmillan, Roach attested, is a former hockey player before training American football and baseball players as well other sports luminaries in gymnastics and track and field, among others.
Roach cited the work Macmillan had done with Cotto?s physique heading to his fight with Delvin Rodriguez last October 5 led him to believe Pacquiao also stands to benefit from his expertise.
MacMillan, Roach added, brings with him a scientific approach to his balanced regimen, emphasizing balance in nutrition as well as the type of work each of his athletes use to reach their peaks.
MacMillan is acknowledged as to have rehabilitated the career of NFL returner Will Blackmon?s injured knee.
Among the many wonders MacMillan did to his clients, according to maxboxing.com was his saving he knee and career of a UCLA gymnast who went on to win a national championship with her team less than a year later. He also helped a triathlete cut by 11 minutes from her 70-3 (half ironman) time allowing her to qualify for the world championship in held in Florida.
Photo: MacMillan (R) with Cotto at the Wildcard Gym in Los Angeles. Photo by Jhay Otamias.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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