SINGAPORE — The Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association fell short of its gold medal target, but its top official notes the final tally actually shows a big improvement from two years ago and thus they consider the Singapore Southeast Asian Games campaign a success.
Patafa won five gold medals, way short of the target of 12 in the biennial meet. The output was also one gold less than the Myanmar SEA Games two years ago.
But Patafa president Philip Ella Juico Juico stressed the increase in silver and bronze medals means a better overall performance by the Philippine track and field team.
The team won a total of 21 medals, eight more than in Myanmar with Eric Cray and Kayla Richardson ruling athletics’ centerpiece 100-meter run.
“We have 5-7-9 against the 6-4-3 in Myanmar. That’s a 62 percent improvement in terms of medals. Sa gold, nabawasan ng isa pero ang kapalit, we had that 100m men’s and women’s, the fastest and centerpiece event of the track and field competition. You can look at those angles,” said Juico.
Juico also added that several Gold medal potentials Archand Bagsit (pulled muscle), Eduardo Buenavista (bum stomach), and Kyla Richardson (hamstring) were also not 100 percent fit, and noted that Cray had to skip the 4x400m run due to fatigue on his hamstring.
Even though he is pleased with the medal output, Juico said Patafa will still re-evaluate its program.
“We will be reassessing the program after the SEA Games. Coaches will be reassessed, athletes will be reassessed,” said Juico.
“Nag-imprve na ang mundo. Sa 4x400m, our time was two seconds better than 2013 but we still got second place this time,” he added.
Source: Reuben Terrado of Spin.ph
