Medal-rich events for PH scrapped
The country will appeal for the inclusion of arnis, triathlon and obstacle course in the 2021 Southeast Asian Games after they were scrapped in the proposed sports lineup.
Philippine Olympic Committee president Bambol Tolentino shared this development following Sunday’s video conference among member nations.
Host Vietnam laid down 36 sports for the 31st edition of the biennial meet with three categories.
Category 1 comprises of compulsory sports athletics and aquatics (swimming and diving), while Category 2 has archery, badminton, basketball (3x3 and 5x5), billiard snooker, boxing, canoeing/kayak, chess (xiangqi), cycling (road and mountain bike), dancesport, fencing, football, futsal, golf, gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic, aerobic), handball (indoor and beach), judo, karate, muay, pencak silat, petanque, rowing, sepak takraw, shooting (pistol, rifle, shotgun), table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball (indoor and beach), weightlifting, wrestling (Greco Roman and freestyle), and wushu.
Category 3 has finswimming, bodybuilding, kurash, kickboxing and vovinam.
The 36 proposed sports were considerably less than the 56 sports competed for during the 2019 edition which the country hosted.
Not included in the proposal were bowling, baseball, duathlon, esports, floorball, hockey (ice, indoor and underwater), ice skating, jujitsu, modern pentathlon, netball, polo, rugby sevens, sailing, sambo, skateboarding, soft tennis, softball, surfing, squash, waterskiing and water polo.
Though planning is still in the initial stage, Tolentino said they would do their best to lobby for inclusion of other sports apart from the three mentioned where the country has the best chances of winning gold medals.
It was also too early to predict how the country would fare in the upcoming edition as far as Tolentino is concerned.
“Mahirap mag-project until we see the events of every sport,” he said.
The country is out to defend its overall championship after reaping 149 gold, 117 silver and 121 bronze medals in 2019. Vietnam came in a far second with 98 golds, 85 silvers and 105 bronzes.