TEAM Philippines is out to improve on its performance in the coming Southeast Asian Games in Singapore with a target of at least 40 gold medals—a production that may be good for fourth to sixth places.
Julian Camacho, the Philippine Chef De Mission to the Singapore Southeast Asian Games, conceded that the top three positions will be contested by Indonesia, Thailand and Indonesia, while host Singapore will crowd it out with Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar in the next rungs.
“If we are going to put our efforts into it, we have a fighting chance for fourth place. The NSAs (sports associations) just have to do their homework,” said Camacho yesterday during the first session for the year of the Philippine Sportswriters Association at the Shakey’s in Malate yesterday.
“We lost potential gold medals in some events, but we are still counting on sports which have been traditional medal producers for the Philippine campaign in the past,” he said with an air of confidence that Team Philipines will improve its seventh-place finish in the Myamar SEA Games last year.
The Singapore SEA Games is set June 5 to 16. The training of the Pinoy athletes is expected to shift to high gear this month. The Philippines won the overall title when it hosted the SEA Games in 2005, but has gone down the ladder the past few years.
In 2013 in Myanmar, the Philippines fell to seventh place, its lowest in SEA Games history, with its haul of 29 gold, 34 silver, and 37 bronze medals.
Camacho said the Philippines will compete in 33 of the 36 sports lined up in Singapore, and is targeting at least 45 of the 402 golds at stake.
Camacho said combat sports like judo, taekwondo, karate and wushu, of which he is president, are capable of at least dishing out four gold medals each. The rest of the golds are also expected from sports like rowing, boxing and basketball.
Preparations are now in full swing with focus on the training of the athletes, including participation in international competitions and in important aspects of sports nutrition, psychology and physiology.
On sports associations with minor concerns like volleyball, Camacho said the Philipine Olympic Committee decided that it will take care of the training of the women’s team pending the recognition of a legitimate leadership.
In boxing, Camacho said the SEA Games Task Force has not formally talked yet with the Association of the Boxing Alliances of the Philippines regarding the status of two top boxers Mark Anthony Barriga and Charly Suarez.