Thursday, October 19, 2006 Davao divers banner RP team
JAIME Asok is back, and the Philippine national diving team to the 15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar is now made up of an all-Davao athletes.
Asok has every reason to vindicate his being dumped from the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games diving competition last year and prove his critics wrong when he plunges back into action in the Asian Games in December.
Asok, one of the country's best synchronizer, was stripped off his chance to defend the 10-meter platform synchronized diving gold medal that he and partner Ryan Rexel Fabriga won in the Hanoi, Vietnam SEA Games in 2003.
His slot then was taken by Kelvin Kong of Cebu, the nephew of controversial coach Rommel Kong.
Host Philippines, however, still kept the 10-meter platform synchronized title although it was Kelvin who teamed up with Fabriga.
But neither of the Kongs will be in Doha since the RP diving team will be represented by an all-Davao line-up.
SEA Games triple gold medalist Sheila Mae Perez will lead the Chinese Zhang Dehu-coached team to be managed by former Olympian Akiko Thomson.
Completing the cast are Fabriga, Niño Carog and siblings Zardo and Ceseil Domenios.
The divers, according to Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman William "Butch" Ramirez, are back at TRACE College in Los Baños for their training. They were relocated to Ultra recently after typhoon Milenyo hit the state-of-the-art aquatics center.
The diving team is set to leave for the Games on December 7. (MLSA)
