SEAG medalists KL - bound — POC

The Philippine Olympic Committee executive council yesterday released new guidelines for the selection of national athletes who will undergo intensive training for the 21st Southeast Asian Games scheduled this September in Kuala Lumpur.

To automaticall qualify for the SEA Games training team, an athlete must have won at least a bronze medal in the 1997 or 1999 SEA Games held in Jakarta and Brunei, respectively. An athlete who wins at least a bronze in any other Southeast Asian or higher level of competition until August may be included in the team.

Included in the guidelines set after a four-hour meeting at the Philippine Columbian Association is a clause that states an eligible athlete may be replaced by an athlete who has beaten him overtaken him in the rankings.

The different National Sports Associations are also allowed to include "reserve" athletes in the SEAG training pool provided they have not participated in two or more previous SEA Games where they earned no medals.

NSAs with no eligible athletes (like in sports disciplines which were not included in the last two SEA Games) are allowed to include a minimum number of athletes in the training team provided they possess the medal potentials.

"This set of guidelines is what will be followed," said POC president Celso Dayrit. "The POC task force for the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games will now sit down with their counterparts from the Philippine Sports Commission for the implementation of the guidelines. The funding of these athletes will also be taken up when they meet."

The POC task force is composed of Freddie Jalasco, who was earlier named chief of mission, Steve Hontiveros and Julian Camacho of bowling and wushu, respectively. The PSC task force is made up of commissioners Ritchie Garcia and Weena Lim, and Athletes Assistance (Atleta) project director Ramon Suzara.

The POC, Dayrit added, will continue to review the continuing performance of non-eligible athletes and teams to justify their possible inclusion in the RP SEA Games delegation before the deadline for submission of Philippine entries.

The new set of guidelines were adopted in view of the prevailing economic crisis in the country.

In the past, the members of the national pool undergo training before the guidelines for the selection of the athletes were released.