SEA Games: Team PH to field bets in all events

Philippine women’s volleyball team at the SEA Games in Singapore. Photo by Raffy Lerma

The Philippines is planning to send a full army of athletes from all 38 sports in the 29th Southeast Asian Games.

Based on the initial list of the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), a total of 493 athletes and 149 coaches will comprise the national delegation, with medal-rich athletics, swimming and team sports such as basketball and volleyball, bringing the most number of participants.

Chef de mission Cynthia Carrion said 100 more key personnel, including the secretariat and medical staff, would join the projected 742-strong contingent during the Aug. 19-30 biennial Games in Kuala Lumpur.

“We will finalize the size of our delegation on June 8,” said Carrion, also president of Gymnastics Association of the Philippines. “By that time, we can already pinpoint the athletes who could give us medals.”

Filipino athletes are hell-bent on improving on their sixth-place finish in the 11-nation meet.

POC president Peping Cojuangco also defended the proposed allocation for a big medical team, saying that they would service the needs of Filipino athletes round-the-clock throughout the billeting and competition areas across Kuala Lumpur.

Carrion added that developmental athletes were also included in the roster, which the joint task force of the Philippine Sports Commission and the POC would work on prior to the final submission of names on June 8.

Offering 46 gold medals, centerpiece athletics will have 30 Filipino athletes while a total of 20 swimmers will compete in aquatics, which has 60 events.

The men’s and women’s teams in football have a total of 40 players while basketball, rugby, volleyball and indoor hockey have 12 players for each gender.

Other sports with a big number of athletes are ice hockey (20), lawn bowls (20), cycling (18), gymnastics (18), sepak takraw (17), archery (16) and pencak silat (15).