The Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) is looking at sending 814 athletes to the 32nd Southeast Asian Games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in May next year.
The development came after two consultative meetings with national sports associations (NSAs) Monday, Oct. 10, where POC president Bambol Tolentino stressed they would still field a strong contingent for the biennial meet.
“It’s again a fighting team and the goal is to send the best full contingent as possible,” Tolentino said.
Cambodia lined up 49 sports with 608 gold medals at stake for the May 5 to 16 meet.
Athletics is expected to field the biggest number of athletes with 47, followed by football with 46 and esports with 45. Floorball has 40, aquatics with 39, basketball with 32, cycling and volleyball with 28 each, water polo with 26 and taekwondo with 25.
The remaining entry by number per sports are: dancesports 12, fencing 24, fin swimming 9
gymnastics (aerobics and artistic) 13, jet ski 8, obstacle sports 20, sailing 8, triathlon 10, diving 2, bodybuilding 15, weightlifting 14, badminton 16, billiards 12, cricket 15, golf 7, hockey 24, petanque 16, soft tennis 12, sepak takraw 22, table tennis 10, tennis 12, beach volleyball 16, arnis 12, boxing 11, jiu jitsu 6, judo 10, karate 19, kickboxing 12, kun bokator 9, muay 14, pencak silat 17, vovinam 28, wrestling 18 and wushu 20.
The Philippines sent 656 athletes who competed in 38 sports in the Vietnam SEA Games last May, while the country had the privilege of fielding close to a thousand athletes when it hosted the 2019 edition where it emerged overall champion.
The Philippines hosted the most number of sports at 56 but with 530 events in 2019, while Vietnam had a 40-sport, 526-event Games last May. Brunei owns the record-low program of 22 sports and 233 events in 1999.