Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Palaro ‘forgets’ to include Dancesport
ORGANIZERS declared this year’s hosting of the Palarong Pambansa a staggering success. However, despite the success, the multi-event meet still suffered minor glitches.
Region 7 Pess Chief Vivian Giñete said that they wondered why there were some events that were not included in the regular roster of events.
“We were hoping that the dancesport and karatedo will already be included in the events but they were not,” Ginete said.
Karatedo was played in the Palaro this year but it was only a demonstration sport. Dancesport, on the other hand, which was supposedly set to be included in the medal tally this year, was never included.
In fact t-shirt entrepreneurs have even printed souvenir t-shirts with dancesport on it.
Giñete said that the event was overlooked by the secretary general of the meet. Giñete failed to join the organization meeting because she had to attend to another matter.
“Had I been there, I could have raised the issue,” she said.
“We have already prepared for dancesport because we know that we stand a good chance of winning medals because we have so many good dancesport athletes in the region but then we learned that it was not part of the events,” Ginete added. “Sayang ang atong intensive grassroots program (for dancesport),” she said.
There were only 17 events for this year’s Palaro namely athletics, archery, badminton, baseball, basketball, chess, football, gymnastics, swimming, sipa/sepak takraw, softball, table tennis, taekwondo, lawn tennis and volleyball.
Giñete also said that for several years karatedo and dancesport have been demo sports and should have been included in the regular roster this year.
She added that for a sport to be included in the medal count, it needs to have a required minimum number of participating regions.
“We have more than enough participants in both events,” said Ginete, who added that had these two events been included, the region, expected to dominate, could have earned more points.
Meanwhile, competition for next year’s hosting is stiff.
Next year’s Palaro will be in Visayas and as early as now, three cities—Capiz, Tacloban and Dumaguete are bidding for the hosting rights. (MCB)
