THE country could be looking at its biggest overseas contingent in the 33rd Thailand Southeast Asian Games in December, according to a very reliable source.
“We could be looking at a delegation of 1,500 to 1,600 athletes, maybe more,” the source, who is privy to the formation of the national squad but declined to be identified, said.
The source explained that the huge contingent was a result of the move of the Thai organizers to stack the roster of disciplines with team sports where they are strong gold medal contenders, plus penciling in individual sports where they will also figure for mints.
The largest Philippine SEA Games squad ever was when the nation hosted the 2019 30th SEA Games, where a total of 1,115 standard-bearers saw action in 56 sports, capturing the overall title with a harvest of 149 gold, 117 silver and 121 bronze medals.
It is widely known that Thailand is a regional football powerhouse, so it will have men’s and women’s competitions as well as futsal tournaments in the men’s and women’s divisions.
Each football squad is composed of 24 players, excluding the coaching staff and other personnel, while a futsal team is made up of 12 players, with the sport traditionally starting earlier than the Dec. 9 to 20 schedule of the meet to be held in Bangkok and the provinces of Chonburi and Songkhla.
The Philippine Football Federation intends to field the top-ranked Filipinas, who are among the pre-SEA Games tournament favorites, the national Under-22 squad in the men’s meet and at least the women’s futsal team in the regional sports showcase.
So there could be at least over 100 players and officials in total for football and futsal alone, said the source, in the Games being staged in Thailand for the seventh time, the last one in 2007 in Nakhon Ratchasima provincial capital of Korat.
The source said that the Philippine Sports Commission has allotted P175 million for the country’s preparation, training and participation in the Thailand SEA Games in the PSC-approved budget contained in the General Appropriations Act for this year.
Should this amount fall short given the projected huge size of the national team, the rest will most likely be taken from the National Sports Development Fund from the monthly remittances of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp, according to the source.
Given the prerogative of the SEA Games host to choose and select the sports included in the Games and raising its overall championship prospects, Thailand, predictably, has done its job of shrewdly choosing the events in each sport while limiting the medal chances of its regional rivals.
A separate source said that among them is artistic gymnastics, where each country can only have one athlete per country, while both the individual all-around and team events from the men’s artistic and women’s artistic gymnastics competitions were dropped.
There will only be six golds in MAG – floor exercise, vault, parallel bars, pommel horse, horizontal bar and rings – and four – floor exercise, balance beam, uneven bars and vault – in WAG, instead of the usual eight and six, respectively, the source said.
In women’s rhythmic gymnastics, at stake will only be the individual all-around and team events, the source added.
On the other hand, the Thais have a total of 18 golds – 11 in the men’s and seven in the women’s – in their traditional combat of muay, plus two more in men’s and women’s individual waikru (forms).
Filipino chess players will need to understand “makruk,” or Thai chess, similar to Cambodia’s “ouk chatrang” which is vastly different from traditional chess and where four out of the eight mints are at stake.
Six years after bagging the overall crown at home, Pinoy bets will be hard-pressed to raise their performance in the Thailand Games after dipping to fifth place in the medal standings with a haul of 58 golds, 85 silvers and 117 bronzes in the Cambodian edition two years ago.
