Meet the young gold medalist fencer to represent PHL in 2019 SEA Games: Samantha Catantan

The 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games will be held in the Philippines, and the nation's finest fencers are training hard in the hopes of doing their country proud.

According to Ivan Mayrina's report on "Unang Balita," the Philippine Fencing Team includes teenage gold medalist Samantha Catantan, who previously represented the Philippines in the 2017 SEA Games, where she was a silver medalist.

This athlete from Quezon City may be young, but she already has an impressive collection of gold medals from both local and international fencing competitions.

She only recently made history as the first Filipino athlete to win the gold medal in the Asian Under-23 Fencing Championship 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand last October.

Samantha has definitely come a long way since she started fencing at nine years-old.

"Parang may sports clinic lang dun sa barangay namin tapos vacation kasi, so 'yun, tinry ko lang," she shared in an interview.

"Yung fencing, unique eh. 'Yung unang narinig ko siya, talaga wala akong totally alam, wala akong background about it so, ayun, kaya na-curious ako kung ano siya."

From simply giving it a try, Samantha is among the 24 fencers who will be competing for the Philippines in the upcoming SEA Games.

As she once again has to defeat athletes from all around the globe to win a gold medal, the teenager shared that she considers it a huge honor just to be able to represent the country.

Samantha also wants young and aspiring athletes like herself to work hard and keep going despite defeat.

"Ang natutunan ko naman sa pagiging athlete, wala talagang shortcut sa lahat ng bagay. Magsikap lang kayo and matutupad 'yung mga gusto niyong maging," she said.

"Siguro, ganon naman talaga sa lahat ng sports eh: Walang madali talaga sa umpisa." — Margaret Claire Layug/LA, GMA News