Even before the Philippine delegation left for Burma (Myanmar) to compete in the 27th Southeast Asian Games, Philippine Sports Commission chair Richie Garcia had already expressed pessimism regarding our performance in the biennial event.
This could be a worst-ever seventh place overall finish for the Philippines in the SEAG, according to Garcia.
The Myanmar Southeast Asian Games officially unfolded yesterday although hostilities in certain disciplines started a few days earlier.
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Perhaps Garcia has a good reason for not raising his own—and the Filipino people’s—expectations too high since 16 potential gold medals have already been lost after host Myanmar scrapped sports where we excel and replaced them with ethnic sports which they will surely dominate.
Of course Garcia is hoping to be proven wrong, although he’s not saying it out loud.
And it looks like he just might be considering that our athletes have gone off to a hot start and continue to sizzle.
At presstime, we have three golds in wushu while all our boxers are already assured of bronze medals.
If this trend continues for the 210-strong Philippine contingent, perhaps we can improve our sixth place finish in Indonesia in 2011 where we brought home 36 golds, 56 silvers and 77 bronzes. Perhaps.
Chef de mission Jeff Tamayo is hoping for 30 gold medals from Burma this time while the coaches have made a forecast of a maximum 49 and a minimum of 32 golds.
Whose prediction will turn out to be closest to the actual result? We will know at the end of competitions on Dec. 22.
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HOOPVINE: According to reports in the social media, British fighter Amir Khan will most likely be the next opponent of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and everybody is wondering why. He’s sure to be soundly beaten and there won’t be much financial gain since the bout will not make money on pay-per-view. Despite the negatives, word has it that the Mayweather-Khan fight is almost a done deal for next year… Congratulations to Francheska “Cheska” Beltran who recently passed the board exams for civil engineers. A graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, Cheska is the eldest of two daughters of Star sports scribe Nelson Beltran and wife Rizza.