PH athletes’ showing disappoints Palace

Malacañang is “not pleased” with the Philippines’ 22nd-place finish in this year’s Asian Games, saying local sports officials “clearly” should do more to improve the country’s performance in the quadrennial competition.

Without mentioning a specific sport, Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma cited the need to concentrate on events where Filipino athletes have a more “competitive advantage.”

“We are not pleased with the results of the Asian Games,” Coloma said yesterday in an interview over Radyo ng Bayan, adding that the Philippine Sports Commission should “do more to improve the performance of our players.”

“Our President believes that, perhaps, we could focus our resources on some sports where Filipinos really have a competitive advantage and can perform well.”

The country’s sports officials and their programs are under scrutinity again after the delegation managed just one gold, three silver and 11 bronze medals in the Incheon Games.

Filipino-American Daniel Caluag landed the country’s lone gold in cycling’s BMX event.

Coloma said the latest Asiad debacle was not necessarily an eye-opener considering that “we have not seen a gold-medal performance for a long time.”

“We have been reminded on many occasions” of the need to improve our sports program, he said. “There are a lot of lessons [from the 2014 Asiad] that we can use to improve the performance of our athletes in the competitions to come.”

Coloma cited the case of boxing, traditionally a source of medals for the Philippines.

Amid accusations of biased judging in favor of the host South Koreans, Charly Suarez fell short against his Mongolian foe in their men’s lighweight final, while three other Filipino boxers settled for the bronze.

“We really need to prepare our athletes better,” Coloma said.

But of all the disappointments in Incheon, sports pundits said none was probably more heartbreaking than Gilas Pilipinas’ seventh-place basketball finish, the country’s worst in the Asian Games, especially after the team performed way above expectations in the Fiba World Cup in Spain.

The Asiad was a different story, though, one where the country’s cage team was jeered for shooting at the opponents’ basket in a desperate attempt to reach the semifinals via the quotient system.

Coach Chot Reyes later defended the instructions he had given the team in the end game against Kazakhstan, a move described as a “dastardly act” by local basketball legend Ramon Fernandez.

“Having played for flag and country in two different generations and [with] all the other national players who brought honor and pride to our countrymen, I feel that our sacrifices, blood, sweat and tears were tarnished by one dastardly act,” Fernandez wrote in an e-mail to sports scribes.