Philippine sailing team arrives as foreign bets trickle in

JAKARTA—Officials and athletes from other foreign countries started arriving in this bustling Indonesian capital on Saturday, getting acquainted with conditions in their respective venues five days before the 26th Southeast Asian Games formally gets off the ground.

The sailing team, which will not see action until November 12, was the lone Philippine contingent that came late in the night, with the others in the 512-strong athletic roster scheduled to plane in on a staggered basis starting Wednesday.

Julian Camacho, the wushu federation president, is expected on Sunday and will be the acting chief of mission of Team Philippines here, with Romy Magat, the tennis sec-gen, already leaving for Palembang where tennis will be played. The duo will be the acting CDMs in the absence of the ailing Sim Chi Tat of Canoe/Kayak.

Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose ‘Peping’ Cojuangco and Philippine Sports Commission chair Richie Garcia will both attend the opening ceremonies in Palembang on Nov. 11 before flying to here on the 14th to cheer for the Filipinos.

Myanmar, Timor-Leste, Cambodia and Vietnamese athletes and officials started checking in at the Hotel Sultan, with the Myanmar delegation that numbered close to a hundred coming in complete with at least two television crews that covered its arrival.

The official Philippine secretariat’s room at Sultan was finally turned over to Filipino personnel, though Inasoc officials are currently cramming to make sure that all amenities needed in the room would work on time.

National Olympic Committee offices of all countries are located on the sixth floor of the posh hotel, but none have working internet connections with even the official website of these Games yet to function.

Fact is, only the basketball schedule for both men and women was the only one released by the Inasoc, with the Philippines, virtually unchallenged in the men’s side, slated to face off with Cambodia first on November 14.

The Filipinos, coached by Norman Black and led by Smart-Gilas mainstay Chris Tiu and UAAP standouts Kiefer Ravena, Bobby Ray Parks and 7-foot Greg Slaughter, drew Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia in Group A.

Host Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Myanmar are in the other group with the top two placers in each bracket advancing to the cross-over semifinals in games slated at the Britama Sport Mal in Kelapa Goding.

These Games will be significant for Tiu, a well-accomplished amateur who was the last cut in the 2007 team coached by Junel Baculi which, as expected, won the gold handily in Nakhorn Ratchasima in Thailand.

Basketball was not included in the events in 2009 in Vientiane, Laos.

After Cambodia, the Filipinos play Vietnam the following day and will wind up their classification games against Thailand on November 16.