After surveying the field, Olympic chief Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino is confident of an impressive outcome for Team Philippines in the coming 30th Southeast Asian Games.
“First, second or third overall,” said Tolentino when pressed to reveal his personal forecast on how the host nation will fare in the 11-nation sportsfest.
“I’m confident that it will be far better than our previous finishes of sixth or seventh,” added the Cavite representative and PhilCycling president.
Since capturing the overall title in the Manila edition of the 2005 Games, Team Philippines has consistently finished sixth, except for winding up fifth in Vientiane, Laos, in 2009 and seventh in 2013 Burma, the country’s worst finish.
Tolentino said he based his projection on various feedback coming from the national sports associations.
“The NSAs are the ones who can tell us where we can strike those gold medals and the reports are encouraging,” said Tolentino.
Tolentino said that contact sports could deliver a lot of gold medals.
Taekwondo, jujitsu, karatedo, judo, boxing, muay, kickboxing, pencak silat, wrestling, wushu, kurash, sambo and arnis offer at least 160 gold medals combined out of the 530 events that will be played from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.
Arnis, the country’s national sport, will stake 20 golds, judo and wushu will have 16 each, taekwondo 22, boxing 13 and jujitsu 11 and Filipinos are battle-tested in these sports.
Other Filipino athletes who are expected to contribute to the golden haul will be coming from athletics, archery, baseball, basketball, billiards, bowling, traditional boat racing, chess, cycling, dancesport, duathlon and fencing.
Golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, rugby sevens, sailing, sepak takraw, softball, surfing and weightlifting are also gold medal sources.