FOR Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) Commissioner Ramon Fernandez, comparing the 30th Southeast Asian Games the country hosted in 2019 and the 31st SEA Games Vietnam is hosting later this year is like having an apple on your right hand and an orange on your left.
“The difference between this 2021 SEA Games and 2019 is the preparation time,” said Fernandez, who was appointed chef de mission to the Vietnam Games by the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC). “Everybody competed in top tournaments all over the world—and that’s what we don’t have now because of the pandemic.”
Only a handful of Filipino athletes were able to compete in tournaments abroad and most of them were those who remain based overseas, among them Tokyo Olympics-bound pole vaulter EJ Obiena (Italy), world champion gymnast Carlos Yulo and boxer Eumir Felix Marcial and Rio 2016 weightlifting silver medalist Hidilyn Diaz.
The rest, Fernandez said, were locked down in their provinces for almost the entire 2020.
When the Philippines was host in 2019, POC President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, then director for Sports of the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee, insisted at 56 sports with 530 events. Not many were confident his numbers could win the country the overall championship, but at the close of the Games, Filipino athletes topped the 11-day event with 149 gold, 117 silver and 121 bronze medals.
Vietnam was a far second with 98 gold, 85 silvers and 105 bronze medals and Thailand was third with 92 golds, 103 silvers and 123 bronzes.
With Vietnam hosting 40 sports composed of at least 400 events, Fernandez said he would be starting his task as chef de mission by searching for those athletes whose events are on the 31st SEA Games program.
“They are 101 in all,” said Fernandez, referring to the gold medals the country could potentially retain in Vietnam, which is hosting the Games for the second time since 2003 from November 21 to December 2 in Hanoi.
“I’m just looking at the gold medalists in the 2019 SEA Games to defend their titles. I’m pinning my hopes for the silvers and bronze medalists too,” Fernandez said.
Arnis, which scooped 14 gold medals into the Philippine coffers in 2019, was expectedly excluded on Vietnam’s list of sports.
“We also have no idea if the events [where we won gold medals] are the same as 2019 or the hosts could have changed them,” he said.
Fernandez stressed that despite the odds, he stressed training and preparation remain as the most important ingredients to winning.
“But I know our national athletes are fighters and they do not simply back down to the challenges despite playing in enemy’s territory,” he said. “I am pretty sure their competitiveness and their fighting spirit won’t diminish.”
Tolentino said Fernandez was the named head of the Philippine delegation to the Games to maintain the successful partnership between the POC and the PSC. The government sports agency’s Chairman William Ramirez was the chef de mission in the 2005 and 2019 SEA Games, both of which the country dominated.