RP might send 150 athletes to Asiad
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 22 May 2010
The Philippine Olympic Committee is looking forward to sending 140 to 160 athletes to carry the country?s colors in the 24th Asian Games this November in Guangzhou, China.
Clarito Samson, a member of the POC working group assigned to oversee preparations for the quadrennial meet, including determining the membership of the national delegation, said the 80-athlete contingent proposed earlier by the Philippine Sports Commission is impractical taking into consideration of teams capable of bringing honors to the country.
?Definitely not 80 athletes,? Samson, one of the names being floated as to head the PSC under the new administration of President-to-be, Sen. Nonoy Aquino, told members of the Sports Commissioners Organization of the Philippines during yesterday?s SCOOP Sa Kamayan weekly session at the Kamayan Restaurant-Padre Faura.
?If we are sending, for instance, our Asian champions men?s and women?s dragon boat teams, that? already 50 athletes considering that to form a complete team, we need 25 athletes in each division,? Samson, a former sportswriter himself, said. ?Add the men?s and women?s basketball teams make up of 12 players each, that will be more or less 80 athletes na. So, how did the PSC able to come up with that number? Imposible, di ba??
?In my estimate based on our interviews with the different heads of national sports associations and in the course of the scrutiny we are doing on their plans of action which the POC required them to accomplish, we can be sending from 140 to 160 athletes,? he said.
He said members of the working group are still in the process of going over the recommendations of the NSAs, after which, the same will be submitted To the POC executive committee. Such will, in turn be submitted to the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee in time for the deadline set June 15.
Deadline for the submission of the final composition by names is on August 2.
Samson expressed optimism that what happened during last year?s Laos Southeast Asian Games when the country sent two contingents ? one funded by the POC and another by the PSC will not happen again.
?Leadership in the PSC will no longer be the same by the time the delegation departs for Guangzhou and I?m hopeful that the composition of the PSC board then will, unlike last year, think of the interest of the country,? Samson said.
Samson also said that statements made before the elections to the effect that the POC is ready to finance the Asian Games participation might not hold this time since ?we have a new president who, in fact, is a nephew of the POC president (former Tarlac Congressman Jose ?Peping Cojuangco).?
?We in the POC are hopeful that the misunderstanding prevailing the past year between the POC and the PSC has ended and that peace and unity as far as the two bodies? relations are concerned will now prevail,? he assured.
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