I will be very direct and to the point regarding our participation in the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam later this year.
Two years ago this time, I was really looking forward to the event because we were hosting it and there were the innumerable advantages of being hosts, such as we can send a big delegation, we have a big say in the events to be held, the Philippine Sports Commission had the funding needed to train our athletes abroad, plus the home crowd support.
We were in a fight for the top position against Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and our athletes delivered from start to finish, plucking one gold after the other in the 56 events contested, that it was a foregone conclusion that the overall championship was ours.
With 149 gold, 118 silver, and 120 bronze medals, we were on top of the heap, and everything was all right with the world.
Fast forward to the present and with a snap of a finger, everything has changed. There is a global COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in different levels of lockdowns, from the strictest in mid-March to a more relaxed level depending on where you are. Unfortunately, even as I was writing this piece, there seems to be a second wave of virus infections with the current surge of cases.
During the pandemic, sports was one of the hardest hit here, with cancelled events like the UAAP, the NCAA, volleyball and basketball though the PBA did manage to hold a bubble conference in Clark. There were also no regular training for the athletes, except individual workouts at home, no training abroad, reduced allowances of athletes following the decrease in PSC funds and so on and so forth.
It’s nobody’s fault, a force majeure situation, something we need to understand, accept and adjust as my personal philosophy goes. And me being the pragmatic person that I have always been, I accept this reality.
I do not expect us to successfully defend our crown in Vietnam, I do not even see us making it to the top three in the medal standings. I will be happy with a 4th place finish, and that will even be an uphill climb.
There are only 40 events in Vietnam and we are competing in 39. The host country, of course, will stack the odds against us and the other countries.
My question really, during this time of the pandemic, is can we really afford to send more than 600 athletes, as submitted by the Philippine Olympic Committee to the organizers and to PSC for funding?
I will not question our participation, we should send deserving athletes who have strong chances of winning medals, but this is certainly not the time to send just for exposure of other athletes considering the difficult times.
I heard the POC accepted the recommendation of the different National Sports Associations on athletes outside of the top 3 finishers in the last SEAG in 2019 and when you do this, sorry, but things do not necessarily come up as that of meeting qualifying standards.
Look at athletics with 63 athletes to be sent. In 2019, we won 11 golds but I tried searching for the number of athletes sent to compare, but I could not find it, or cycling with 39 to be sent. In 2019, we won 3 cycling golds.
There will be a final screening of the athletes to be sent and I would expect a lot of lobbying by the NSAs to justify their recommendations, maybe even increase the number if ever possible.
Please remember my question is on those recommended outside of the top 3 finishers, as I am just after prioritizing things both at the POC and the PSC level.
Now is not the time to send an oversized delegation that can be expected to underperform.
And for me, that is the bottom line.