The Philippine Sports Commission is giving the Philippine Olympic Committee a free hand to determine and finalize the size of the delegation in the coming 18th Asian Games in Indonesia.
PSC chair Butch Ramirez said they would respect the number and composition Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez, the country’s chef de mission for the Games, would endorse to the sports-funding agency for the continental sportsfest that will run from Aug. 18 to Sept. 2.
“We leave the decision to the POC. The PSC shall support the team as best as we can,” said Ramirez after his meeting with around 30 sports coordinators of the Philippine Sports Institute at Philsports Complex.
Ramirez said the PSC’s initial help would be to assemble a medical team from the PSI to assist all Asian Games-bound athletes.
Based on an earlier projection using gold and silver medalists in last year’s Kuala Lumpur Southeast Asian Games as one of the criteria, around 150 Filipino athletes are bound for the Asiad to be hosted by the cities of Jakarta and Palembang.
There are 57 athletes who accounted for the 24 gold medals that the Philippines brought home from Kuala Lumpur, including the Gilas Pilipinas men’s basketball team and the 20-man ice hockey squad.
The final number of athletes, however, could reach 200 with the inclusion of the women’s softball team, which qualified to the Games by finishing second in the 2017 Asian Women’s Softball Championships.
Gomez, president of the Philippine Fencing Association, is also considering the women’s volleyball team, made up of stars from the Philippine Superliga and Philippine Volleyball League, for inclusion.
“We still do not have the final numbers, but there will be not much difference from the previous projection,” said Gomez.