MANILA -- Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) announced on Tuesday that this year's Asian Games in China will feature 42 major events and 473 minor events, as the body is poised to support a lean but mean delegation in the quadrennial meet.
“Well we are eyeing a lean delegation for the Asian Games, as we factor in here the potential qualifiers and the funds of course for the Philippine team,” said spokesman Joey Romasanta in the sidelines of the weekly forum of the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Tuesday.
“Filipinos athletes are naturally talented, so we will try our best in the POC to support them," he added.
Earlier, Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Chairman Harry Angping said he plans to form "an elite core of 50 athletes" in a bid to win eight to 10 gold medals in the 16th edition of the Asiad scheduled November 16-27 in Guangzhou, the second city in China to host the games since Beijing in 1990.
Romasanta said the 42 major events include 28 Olympic events and 12 non-Olympic classified events. The games will be held at 50 competition venues, 20 training venues and 10 backup venues.
Organizers estimate that the competition will attract 14,000 players and accompanying officials, 65,000 international and Asian individual event sports technical officials, 10,000 registered media staff and over 2,000 members of the macro Olympic Council of Asia from 45 participating countries. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)