Main batch of RP contingent off today

Standouts from 11 sports comprise the biggest wave of Philippine athletes leaving today for Busan, South Korea for the 14th Asian Games scheduled to start Sunday.

No less than Philippine Sports Commission chairman Eric Buhain will head the departing 115-strong contingent that will take a PR 416 flight at 2:20 p.m. With Buhain is PSC commissioner Leon Montemayor.

Already in Busan are the high-profile, all-pro basketball squad which left Wednesday. The early birds among the Filipino bets were the boxers, archers, rowers and the sailing entries.

Buhain has earlier predicted a modest haul of at least four golds and a maximum of seven although he pointed out that a silver or a bronze cannot be sneezed at considering the continental scope of the competition.

A record 44 countries are taking part in Korea’s second Asiad in 20 years. North Korea is in the field for the first time along with newly independent East Timor.

The departing RP athletes come from swimming, cycling, equestrian, fencing, golf, gymnastics, judo, sepak takraw, shooting, softball and weighlifting.

The strongest medal hopes from this bunch are the golfers spearheaded by Brunei Southeast Asian Games individual winner Juvic Pagunsan and national champion Angelo Que. The Filipino parbusters had already sampled the Asiad Country Club course that will host the event Oct. 3-6 and found the layout not too forbidding.

"Hindi nahirapan," said National Golf Association of the Philippines official Jake Ayson quoting coach Roger Retuerto, who supervised the sneak two-day practice round of the Filipinos at the Asiad course some two weeks ago.

"The course is similar to Alabang with a lot of elevated greens," Ayson added.

The supercharged billiards team, spearheaded by Efren (Bata) Reyes and Francisco (Django) Bustamante, are scheduled to leave tomorrow in the 76-man group that wil include bets from bowling, bodybuilding, gymnastics, shooting, soft tennis, squash, table tennis, wrestling and baseball.

The entries in athletics, badminton, diving and kayak are leaving on Oct. 2, the karatedo and teakwondo bets on Oct. 5 and the wushu representatives on Oct. 6.