Candidates for SEA Games known in 90 days

Candidates for SEA Games known in 90 days

By Emil C. Noguera, Correspondent

The composition of the Philippine delegation to the 2009 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Laos will be known in the next three months as the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) formally ratified the guidelines in selecting athletes for the biennial event.

PSC chairman Harry Angping said athletes will be selected based on the criteria set by the agency he heads and POC officials during the joint meeting Monday at the agency’s boardroom.

“We are sending the best among the best. We will be going there [in Laos] for the gold medal,” said Angping.

Candidate athletes are those who won gold and silver medal in the 2007 Thailand Games; athletes who finished in the Top 8 in the 2006 Doha Asian Games provi­ded he or she is the highest or the second highest Southeast Asian athlete; the 15 athletes who competed in the 2008 Bejing Olympics; and athletes who landed first or second in the continental tournaments partici­pated in by China, Japan and South Korea.

“They are just can­didates. They will go into try outs in the next three months. After that, we will have a performance grading to choose athletes that will undergo rigid training for [the] SEA Games,” stressed Angping.

Submission of the list of candidates by the various national sports associations has been set on February 28.

“By June, we will know how many athletes we will be sending to Laos and we should be stringent in the selection process,” Angping said in Filipino.

Final lineup will be determined a month before the biennial meet.

Angping also named PSC commissioner Joey Mundo and POC secretary general Steve Hontiveros to lead the monitoring committee, which will oversee the training of athletes and coa­ches while PSC commissioner Akiko Thom­son will handle the women and youth teams
from:http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2009/feb/17/yehey/sports/20090217spo1.html