Squash takes different path

Squash is not played that much in Vietnam, and their court facilities there are very limited

Missing the 31st Southeast Asian (SEA) Games doesn’t concern the national squash team.

Philippine Squash Academy (PSA) president Robert Bachmann said they are not making a big deal out of missing the bus headed for the biennial meet as they are setting their sights on other more important tournaments.

Bachmann said the decision of the organizers no longer came as a surprise, knowing that the host country, Vietnam, doesn’t have the facility and squash federation that would oversee the staging of the sport.

“We have expected that to happen. Squash is not played that much in Vietnam, and their facilities there are very limited,” said Bachmann, who is also the vice president of the Southeast Asian Squash Federation.

Bachmann said instead of sobbing over being cut in the SEA Games program, they are setting their sights on the SEA Cup and the SEA Squash Games.

The last time the SEA Cup was held, the national squad won two gold and three bronze medals.

“The SEA Games is not the be all and end all for SEA squash,” said Bachmann, whose sports joined other events like billiards, skateboarding, arnis and triathlon as among those that would be dropped in the biennial meet in Hanoi next year.

“We have more important tournaments. Those are more important to our individual, regional, continental and world rankings. The SEA Games is just one of the many tournaments.”

Bachmann said unlike other federations, he doesn’t have any plan of making an appeal.

“It would be nice to be included in the list, but then we are not really going to push for it because we have no counterpart federation there and it lacks the facilities, too,” he said.

“It would be like we’re there, but we are just not part of the medal count. But it does not really matter as long as we achieve our goal of creating awareness for squash.”