Friday, December 07, 2007
RP aims for 100 gold medals for this year's SEA Games
By Erwin Ambo S. Delilan
THAILAND -- For having trust and confidence with the pool of Filipino athletes brought here, Philippine Sports Commissioner Ritchie Garcia is hoping that the country can harvest as much as 100 gold medals for this year's 24th Southeast Asian Games.
In an interview, Garcia, who acts as Deputy Chef de Mission for Philippines, said based on fearless projection, Filipino athletes who will compete in almost 40 sports disciplines will definitely grab more than a hundred gold medals.
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"Others say that it's impossible but I know it can be because almost all of our athletes now are in high morale,' Garcia told Sun.Star-Bacolod.
The Philippine delegation has a total of 595 athletes.
"Knowing the athletes' capacity and training prior to their coming, I know that we can harvest a lot of gold medals this year," Garcia added.
Among the sports disciplines that Garcia is confident that Filipino athletes can snatch gold medals are in swimming, boxing, wushu, dragon boat race, rowing, wrestling, wind surfing, basketball (men and women0, athletics, dance sports, baseball, taekwondo, karate, judo, fencing, among others.
Garcia lamented Tac Padilla, Philippine's bet for shooting, was not able to grab gold Wednesday after his gun allegedly malfunctioned.
"We'd lost two gold medals now for this shooting event alone. But there's nothing to worry yet. We still have a lot of hopes for other games," Garcia stressed.
Philippine's bet Joey Barba has made a good start in cycling seeding run Wednesday after finishing second to Ketkaewmanee Sitichai of Thailand with only 1 minute .389 seconds time difference.
Barba finished with the final time of 4.03.664 while Sitichai ended with 4.02.275 clock time.
Today's events (December 7) include Athletics - hammer throw (men), shot put (men), triple jump (men), 400-meter hurdles (w), javelin throw (w), 1,500-meter run (m), 5,000-meter run (women) and 100-meter dash (men & women).
For swimming, 100-meter freestyle (women0, 200-meter backstroke (men and women), 400-meter individual medley (men and women) and 400x200-meter freestyle relay (men and women).
Others are billiards and snooker, cycling (men and women), equestrian, gymnastics, wrestling, wushu, water polo, petanque, archery, baseball, basketball, boxing, men's football, futsal, rowing, handball, sepak takraw, squash, table tennis, tennis, volleyball, beach volleyball, pencak silat.
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro.
(December 7, 2007 issue)
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