THE Philippines has entered 1,115 athletes and 753 Coaches and officials, which is the biggest number of delegation in the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.
The 1,868 Filipino contingent will lead Indonesia, which has the second biggest delegation with 1,702, including a big number of self-funded athletes and officials.
To the surprise of many, Singapore entered the third biggest delegation with 1,591 followed by Thailand with 1,473, Malaysia with 1,076 and Myanmar with 952.
Vietnam, the next host of the SEA Games in 2021 is ranked 7th in terms of number of delegation with 890. Vietnam did not field athletes in most team events, except in football, volleyball and men’s basketball.
Cambodia, the host of the 2023 SEA Games, fielded 510, followed by Laos with 419, Brunei with 257 and Timor Leste with 221.
The Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee (PHISGOC) officials said the final number of entries may still go down in the delegation registration meeting on Nov 19, 2019.
A total of 530 gold medals will be at stake in 56 sports in the 30th SEA Games. The Philippines eyes to finish in the top three among the 11 countries competing in the SEA Games.
Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman William Butch Ramirez believes that Philippines will perform well in the biennial games.
Ramirez said according to assessments and medal projections made by national sports association (NSA) officials , Philippines is capable of winning 90 to 100 gold medals.
Ramirez said that the PSC board has approved all funds for the exposures and training of all the SEA Games-bound athletes.
“The PSC spent for all the training, especially the foreign exposures of the athletes for the SEA Games,” Ramirez said. “We hope to find Olympic-grade athletes from them as well as the Tokyo Games are also just around the corner.” (RSC with PR)