RP bid hinges on Olympians, world champs

If only the 22 Olympians and three former world champions who will be part of the RP delegation to next month’s 21st Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur could all deliver gold medals, then half the job can be considered done as far as the country’s chances in the biennial games is concerned.

The country’s top sports officials, led by Philippine Olympic Committee president Celso Dayrit and Philippine Sports Commission chairman Carlos Tuason, have come up with a "conservative figure" of 40 gold medals for the 312 Filipino athletes set to compete in 29 of 32 sports disciplines lined up in the Malaysian capital.

Of the total number of athletes, 18 are veterans of last year’s Sydney Olympics. They are Jennifer Chan of archery, Eduardo Buenavista and Lerma Bulauitan of athletics, Arlan Lerio, Larry Semillano and Romeo Brin of boxing, Zardo Domenios and Sheila Mae Perez of diving, Juan Carlo Piccio, Miguel Mendoza, Lizza Danila and Jenny Guerrero of swimming, Benjie Tolentino of rowing, Jasmin Luis of shooting, and Roberto Cruz, Donald Geisler, Eva Ditan and Jasmin Strachan of taekwondo.

These 18 athletes, however, failed to win a single medal in Sydney as the country went home without an Olympic medal for the first time since the 1988 Games in Seoul, Korea. The only Sydney Olympian who will not see action in Kuala Lumpur is boxer Danilo Lerio, who recently took a leave of absence due to personal concerns.

Three veterans of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics who will compete in Kuala Lumpur are Elma Muros and Roy Vence of athletics and Reynaldo Galido of boxing, along with Arianne Cerdena, winner of the ladies singles’ gold in the 1988 Olympics when bowling was included as a demonstration sport.

The three former world champions, expected to stamp their class in the 21st edition of the SEA Games, are 1999 World 9-Ball champion Efren "Bata" Reyes, three-time World Steel Challenge champion Jethro Dionisio and 1997 World Wushu Championships gold medal winner Michael Co.

"This is a fighting team," said Dayrit, referring to the RP delegation which might even grow just in time for the Aug. 11 deadline set by the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games organizers for the submission of official lineups. The initial list of 312 athletes was released yesterday by the SEAG Task Force.

Fielding a basketball team (men and women), for instance, remains in the balance since the Basketball Association of the Philippines is still under suspension from the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) due to the eight-month-old leadership dispute between Gonzalo "Lito" Puyat and Quintellano "Tiny" Literal.

The SEA Games Task Force, composed of POC and PSC officials, however, said yesterday that they might include the basketball lineups in the list, which will be handcarried by RP chief of delegation Freddie Jalasco to Kuala Lumpur today in the hope that they will be allowed to compete despite the FIBA suspension.

Twenty-four more athletes, including 11 from athletics, four from judo, three each from cycling and karatedo, might still make it to the team since they are still trying to meet the SEA Games standard set by the task force.