Philippine Sports Commission chair Richie Garcia would be more than happy to finance at least 15 topnotch Filipino athletes in the Rio De Janeiro Olympics next year.
“If we can get 15 to 20 athletes to qualify, it’s already an accomplishment we should be proud of,” said Garcia during Tuesday’s Philippine Sportswriters Association forum at Shakey’s Malate. “We didn’t have a lot of qualifiers in the past Olympics.”
He said the sports agency would take care of the funding of qualified Filipino athletes with the bulk of the expenses set to be allocated for training.
From among the 24 sports that submitted a list of possible qualifiers, basketball and rugby 7 have the biggest number of athletes with 12.
The Philippine Volcanoes, the country’s Rugby 7s team, are projected to book a ticket to Rio while Gilas Pilipinas, the men’s basketball squad, will go through the Fiba Asia Championship next month where the chances of seizing the lone continental slot for the Olympics are tough.
“Except for training, there’s nothing much to spend for since everything will be taken care of during the participation of our athletes,’’ said Garcia.