Incheon AG drops billiards, 5 other events

MANILA, Philippines - Unless changes in the calendar of events are made, the Philippines stands to lose a handful medals in the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.

Organizers of the next Asiad are only looking at 36 sports offering 437 gold medals in the quadrennial event scheduled Sept. 19 to Oct. 4.

They have decided to drop six sports that were played in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. They are chess, cue sports, dancesport, dragon boat, roller sport and softball.

The Philippines will suffer from this because in Guangzhou it won a gold and a silver in billiards, another silver in chess and two bronze medals in dancesport.

Philippine Olympic Committee vice president Jose Romasanta said they have not received the final list of sports to be played in Incheon.

But according to the Games’ official website, these six sports have already been dropped in favor of baseball, bowling, cricket, kabaddi, karate, sepak takraw, squash and wushu.

The Philippines came home from the Guangzhou Asiad with haul of three gold, four silver and nine bronze medals.

The gold medals came from boxing’s Rey Saludar (flyweight), bowling’s Biboy Rivera (men’s singles) and billiards’ Dennis Orcollo (nine-ball singles).

Winning the silver medals in 2010 were Annie Albania (boxing, Warren Kiamco (billiards), Miguel Tabuena (golf) and the team event in chess.

The Philippines bagged four bronze medals in taekwondo, two in dancesport courtesy of Ronnie Steve Vergara and Charlea Lagaras (Latin paso doble and Latin cha-cha), and one each in boxing, bowling and wushu.

Billiards has been a perennial source of medals for the Philippines in the Asian Games, winning one gold, one silver and one bronze in the 2002 Busan Games, and another gold plus two silver in the 2006 Doha Games.