HOST Vietnam was given an extra week to decide whether to delay or push through with the staging of the 31st Southeast Asian Games, originally set in Hanoi on Nov. 21 to Dec. 2, after an emergency virtual meeting of the SEA Games Federation Council yesterday.
“The final decision will be known next week,” Philippine Olympic Committee president Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino said after the meeting where eight of the 11 participating countries opposed the move to reset the Games to July next year.
Aside from the Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Timor Leste thumbed down the Vietnamese proposal while Myanmar, which is experiencing internal turmoil, agreed. Laos abstained, according to Tolentino.
Before the meeting, overseas reports said the Vietnam Olympic Committee wrote its regional counterparts informing them that it decided to reschedule the Games due to the sudden surge of COVID-19 cases in Hanoi and neighboring areas where 40 sports are set to be staged.
The reports said that Vietnam wanted to reschedule the meet to July 2022, hoping the country’s virus crisis would be under control by then.
Tolentino announced during the POC general assembly meeting last Tuesday that he was against the move in consensus with the majority of the Southeast Asian sports officials, who thought that delaying the Games was ill-advised.
Among the reasons they cited was the hectic international sports calendar next year when the Asian Games, Asian Indoor Martial Arts Games, Winter Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games, among others, are also set to be played.
Tolentino noted that majority of athletes all over Southeast Asia had been priming up for the competition, while the Philippine Sports Commission had earmarked P200 million for the country’s training and participation in the event.
Tolentino said he gained an impression that “the hosts were also reluctant to postpone the Games because all the structures and venues are already complete, but the rise in cases has raised an alarm.”
Reports emanating from Vietnam said its government had ordered its sports ministry to come up with a master plan or “playbook” similar to what the International Olympic Committee did with the Tokyo Olympics that will address the challenges that would arise should the SEA Games go on as set.
Tolentino acknowledged that “it is still the Vietnam government that had the final say on the matter in the staging of the SEA Games.”
PSC Commissioner Ramon Fernandez, the national team chief of mission, said the government sports agency would abide with whatever Vietnam comes up with.
“If the SEA Games are postponed, this may give our athletes a longer time to prepare,” said Fernandez, acknowledging that the pandemic has also hampered the actual training of the country’s campaigners.
