Initial POC findings: ‘Food may have slowed PH SEA games bets’

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Olympic Committee plans to further dissect the country’s flop in the recent Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia after less than half of the National Sports Association showed up for an assessment meeting, an official from the ruling sports body said Wednesday.

Julian Camacho, deputy chief of mission of the PH delegation to the SEA Games, said only 14 of the 29 NSAs showed up during the meeting. Camacho said more probes and investigations would be conducted before the POC releases its SEA Games report.

Camacho didn’t say which NSAs showed up, adding food was partly to blame for the debacle.

“It’s not so much the spice but there are ingredients in their food which didn’t sit well with the Filipino stomach,” said Camacho. “We had reports that some athletes experienced bum stomach going into the finals of their events.”

POC secretary general Steve Hontiveros said they won’t offer excuses for the debacle but vowed “this will not happen again in Myanmar in 2013.”

The Philippines brought home 36 gold medals, way off the 70-gold target set by top sports officials.

Badminton, which has not won a single medal in the biennial games since 2003, was among the teams that flunked in the SEA Games, along with futsal and football.

Among those that failed to win a gold medal were swimming, golf and karate.

Taekwondo and boxing each chipped in four gold medals for the country.