NSAs ‘responsible’ for athletes’ sad form

THE BAD showing of Filipino athletes overseas can be blamed mainly on the unsound programs of national sports associations (NSAs), according to triathlon chief Tom Carrasco.

Carrasco said the country cannot improve its campaign in international competitions if NSAs, by themselves, do not act to correct past mistakes in talent recruitment, budgeting and training processes.

“You can say that the responsibility over winning and losing in international sports competitions lies on the efforts of the NSAs to develop their athletes, as much as the POC leadership,” Carrasco said.

“It is us who make the foundations because the athletes come from us,” added the president of the Triathlon Association of the Philippines who is eyeing the post of POC chair against incumbent Monico Puentevella in the Philippine Olympic Committee polls on Nov. 30.

Carrasco and many-time Southeast Asian Games shooting champion bared their thoughts on the state of local sports during yesterday’s Scoop sa Kamayan session on Padre Faura, Manila.

Sixty NSAs, 40 of them voting members of the POC, conduct the identification, recruitment and training of the national athletes.

Carrasco said next year will be “a pivotal point” for Philippine sports as the country prepares for its campaigns in the Myanmar Southeast Asian Games, 2014 Incheon Asian Games, the 2014 Naning Youth Olympics and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympic Games.

Meanwhile, former boxing chief Manny Lopez, who is running for re-election as first vice president, said that if given a new mandate he would prioritize the establishment of a POC Olympic Academy to help propagate principles of Olympism here.