PSC to renew ties with sports powerhouse countries

The Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) plans to renew its ties with countries known to be traditional sporting powerhouses to ensure that our national athletes will get quality training in time for their various international campaigns in 2011. PSC chairman Ricardo Garcia said that aside from renewing the country’s sports pact with China and Cuba, his agency also submitted the same proposal to Indonesia and Russia. Garcia said our athletes need international training to offset the lack of competition in the country since the PSC has limited funds for sports development. The PSC provided the National Sports Associations (NSA), which are competing in the Guangzhou Asiad, with only two international exposures to hone their athletes' skills. “Exposing them internationally with only two foreign trips is not enough, but that’s because we really have limited funds for sports," said Garcia, who joined the Philippine delegation in the 16th Guangzhou Asian Games in China. The PSC chief stayed for a few days in Guangzhou to personally see how the nationals would perform against the region’s best athletes. The Philippines, after almost a week of competition, has so far won two gold, one silver and four bronze medals, with most of our athletes having a hard time competing against their well-trained rivals especially from China, South Korea and Japan – the Top 3 leaders in the medals race. And with funds still uncertain for next year, Garcia said he is working extra hard to assure that Filipino athletes would be given quality training with help from other countries. “For our athletes to improve, they really need to go out to train and compete. That is why we are in the process of negotiating with other countries like China and Cuba to help us. We have also sent sports exchange proposals to Indonesia and Russia and they are now studying these," added Garcia. Year 2011 will be another big year for sports as the Nationals will be preparing for the Southeast Asian Games to be hosted by Indonesia, aside from various qualifying events for the 2012 London Olympics. – JVP/KY, GMANews.TV