PSC’s Garcia still upbeat on PHL’s Asiad campaign

Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) chairman Ricardo Garcia remains optimistic with the Philippine delegation’s campaign in the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou China. “Let’s not judge them early and say that our campaign is headed for a failure. It’s still too early to tell, so let’s give our athletes a chance to perform. The fight for the gold medal is still far from over," said Garcia. Garcia believes the 188-member national team remains on course to achieve its target of improving the four-gold, six-silver and nine-bronze medal haul in the 2006 Doha Asian Games. “The way I look at it, we’re still on track as far as achieving our target medals in Guangzhou is concerned," said Garcia, who arrived Tuesday night from Guangzhou after personally watching Pinoy athletes compete against the best from the Asian region. He said that the competition this year is much tougher than four years ago because athletes from host China, Korea and Japan have shown remarkable improvements. “Unlike in Doha, other countries including those of Southeast Asia are having a hard time winning a gold medal because the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese have lorded it over the competition," said Garcia. The Philippines has so far won one gold, courtesy of bowler Biboy Rivera in the men’s singles, as well as four bronze medals to somehow ease the pain of stunning losses by Efren “Bata" Reyes and Roberto Gomez in the 8-ball singles event of billiards. Still, Garcia is confident the athletes will still be able to achieve their target. “Rivera’s golden feat was not expected, and that evens up the early exits in the men’s 8-ball singles." “But we’re still contenders in both the men’s and women’s 9-ball events, and boxing and taekwondo just started. If our billiards players can deliver two gold medals, and the boxing and taekwondo win a gold each, then we will hit our target." In order to boost the athletes’ drive to win the gold or a medal of any color, the PSC assured Asiad medalists that they will receive their cash incentives from the government before Christmas. A gold is worth P1 million while a silver and bronze medalist will receive P500,000 and P100,000, respectively. – JVP/KY, GMANews.TV