INQUIRER Sports

VIENTIANE, Laos? The Philippines' favorite sport?basketball?will be back in the calendar when Indonesia takes its turn to host the 26th Southeast Asian Games in 2011.

And another possible gold medal trove for the Filipinos, tenpin bowling, is also among the sports to be reinserted as the Indonesians proposed to stage 37 events, a lot bigger than the 25-event edition of this year?s games here.

Two extreme sports, wall climbing and roller-skating, have been included after the SEA Games Federation?s executive meeting, according to a Bernama report on Monday.

To be scrapped from the program are regional disciplines petanque, fin swimming, muay thai and shuttlecock, which are among the events being played in this capital city.

Other sports included in the 2011 roster are badminton, weightlifting, aquatics, football, archery, shooting, pencak silat, taekwondo, athletics, squash, hockey, billiard & snooker, boxing, volleyball, basketball, golf, judo, sepak takraw, table tennis, wushu and cycling.

The Indonesians have hosted the biennial meet three times in 1979, 1987 and 1997, all in capital Jakarta. Each time, the Indonesians wound up overall champions.

Apart from tenpin bowling, other sports not being played here but are slated in Indonesia are equestrian, gymnastics, fencing, chess, traditional boats, kayaking, rowing, sailing, softball and baseball.

The Filipinos are the defending champions in both men?s and women?s softball and are medal contenders in chess, rowing and fencing.

For the first time in the history of the SEA Games, Indonesia also proposed to include kempo, a type of combat sport similar to fencing that uses bamboo weapons. It is a sport popularly known as kendo in Japan.

Also added was powerlifting, a normal fare in Paralympic events.