PSC: Make a stand

MANILA—Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Richie Garcia said that the Philippines should make a stand with regards to the exclusion of 16 events in athletics and swimming for the forthcoming 27th Southeast Asian Games in Myanmar on Dec. 11 to 22.

Garcia said that the removal of the men and women’s 400-meter hurdles, men and women’s triple jump, men and women’s hammer throw, decathlon and heptathlon is a big blow to the Team Philippines campaign. Also being scrapped by the host Myanmar Sea Games Organizing Committee are the men’s 1,500-m freestyle, men and women’s 400-m individual medley, and women’s 800-m freestyle in medal-rich swimming.

He said that all these scrapped events were part of the 36 golds that the Philippines won during the 26th Games in Indonesia in 2011.

“This means that we are already losing at least 16 out of the 36 gold medals that we won in Indonesia. And this happens even before the competition starts. We are not happy with this set-up. We have to make a stand,” Garcia said.

Token team

Host Myanmar restored table tennis, badminton and water polo to the 2013 edition to be held in the cities of Yangoon, Naypydaw and Mandalay in its last SEA Games Federation Council meeting held last Tuesday.

But gymnastics and lawn tennis are not restored, while fencing and bowling are also not included in the Myanmar Games calendar.

“If they will not give in to our request, then we might as well just send a token delegation of about 20 to 30 athletes. We are not going to surrender in a fight but it should be fair,” added Garcia.

The Team Philippines settled for sixth place with a total of 36-56-77 gold-silver-bronze medal haul in the 26th edition in Indonesia in 2011, while Myanmar finished seventh with 16-27-37 tally.

Myanmar added sports unfamiliar to the Filipino athletes like kempo, tarung derajat, vovinam and chinlone (cane ball), which accounted to a total of 50 golds for the host team.

A total of 31 disciplines and 444 events will be contested in the 10-day meet. Among them are athletics, aquatics, archery, billiards and snooker, boxing, basketball, canoeing, cycling, equestrian, football, futsal, golf, judo, karatedo, rowing, sepak takraw, chinlone, shooting, sailing, taekwondo, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling, wushu, body building, traditional boat race, chess and pencak silat.