Swimming, weightlifting out as priority sports–Garcia

MANILA, Philippines — Based on previous performances, cycling, golf, karatedo, judo, rowing and dragon boat are strong contenders to fill up the two vacant slots in the elite cast of priority sports following the removal of swimming and weightlifting for nonperformance in the 2013 Southeast Asian Games.

But Philippine Sports Commission chair Richie Garcia said the sports-funding agency is looking carefully at the performance of the national sports associations and their athletes before choosing the new additions to the priority list now made up of athletics, archery, boxing, billiards, bowling, taekwondo, wushu and wrestling.

“Before we add more sports [in the priority list], we have to see a certain trend on the performances of the NSAs and their athletes. We have to see progress,’’ said Garcia Sunday.

“These are the things that we’re looking at. Definitely, we will have to include two more,’’ added the chef de mission of the PH delegation to the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.

The NSAs of the priority sports recognized by the Philippine Olympic Committee get a large chunk of PSC funds for training and development of their athletes.

“We’ve removed them (weightlifting and swimming) because their performances did not meet our expectations,’’ said Garcia.

The swimmers almost captured a gold medal in the SEA Games last year in Burma (Myanmar) through Jasmine Alkhaldi but the victory was nullified due to a protest.

The national lifters got a silver courtesy of Olympian Hidilyn Diaz.

Alkhaldi, her confidence deflated, swam in the re-swim of the 100m freestyle but eventually wound up with a bronze. Overall, the Filipino tankers brought home four bronze medals.