THE 30TH Southeast Asian Games, or the 2019 SEA Games, a biennial regional multi-sport event, will open roughly in a week, from Nov. 30 to December which the Philippines will be hosting.
I don’t know much about the preparations of our athletes for the coming SEA Games and how ready are they to battle regional powerhouses Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and even Vietnam. The venues should be ready by now.
Basing on previous news reports, a good number of our athletes had undergone training abroad and likewise participated in foreign competitions in preparation for this year’s edition of the SEAG. They had done well and brought home medals.
In fairness to these athletes, they were cautious in their medal predictions and podium finishes, safely saying that they’ll be trying their best to win for the country medals in the 56 sports to be contested, the highest number of sports programmed in the history of the games.
The last time we hosted the event was in 2005 and we bagged 113 golds on the way to the overall championships. We had regressed since then, hovering between fourth to sixth places with our worst medal tally of 23 golds at the 2017 Malaysia SEAG.
In 10 years, between 2007 to 2017, the total number of SEAG golds we had was 196. Then in comes the incredible part.
Heads of national sporting associations have a wildly creative imagination that they had projected a 220 gold medal harvest and the overall title to boot. They declared this fantasy in a recent gathering called by the Philippine Olympic Committee and the Philippine Sports Commission.
If Manila traffic is worth 50 gold medals, then our athletes still have plenty of medals to collect to get to 220. Host countries usually make good in these events but this forecast is something for Ripley’s Believe It or Not, basing on our previous performance in the past SEAGs.
Maybe these heads of NSAs had employed the mystics of Mount Makiling and Siquijor Province and were supplied with superhuman potions. Maybe they had an agreement with that pastor who owns the universe and were given the power to “istap” other competing nations from their gold medal winning ways.
Let’s give the prophecy to Pastor Q and be realistic. Finishing third in this edition is already a big achievement for our athletes and with maybe 80 gold medals or so. But if we do reach the 200 gold medal mark, then I can safely say that fantasy can become reality./PN
