FILE – Filipino athletes at the 30th Southeast Asian Games closing ceremony. INQUIRER PHOTO/MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines will send 626 athletes to compete in 39 of the 40 sports in the 2021 Southeast Asian Games that will be held in Hanoi, Vietnam from November 21 to December 2.
Philippine Olympic Committee President Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino turned over Team Philippines’ entry by numbers to Philippine Sports Commission Chairman William Ramirez Friday, a document that received a few changes after an initial list was discussed.
The POC previously announced that 560 athletes would be sent to Hanoi but Tolentino said that 66 were added to the list following discussions with officials of the 39 national sports associations.
“After a careful review—with the mindset of defending our overall title—we came up with these numbers,” said Tolentino.
Athletics will have the most athletes with 38 men and 25 women for a total of 63 representatives.
Basketball and volleyball will each have 30 athletes—15 for each gender—cycling has 39, gymnastics at 25, taekwondo has 24, football will have 28, and wushu at 21.
The representatives for the other sports are as follows: fencing (24), esports (18), aquatics (17), boxing (13), canoe-kayak (19), pencak silat (16), golf seven, handball (10), judo (17), jiu-jitsu (six), kickboxing (12), karatedo (15), kurash (10), muaythai (12), table tennis (three), tennis (eight), triathlon (eight), beach volleyball (six), weightlifting (14), wrestling (13), and vovinam (six).