Gold shortage in Vietnam

The Philippines garnered 149 gold medals when it hosted the Southeast Asian Games (SEA) two years ago.

When Filipino athletes return to defend their overall crown in November, they should consider themselves lucky if they can bring home 50 golds.

That’s the sad reality facing majority of athletes who have yet to resume training after the coronavirus pandemic struck last year.

Save for a few based abroad, athletes have been stranded in their respective provinces waiting for the green light to get back to work.

They may have to wait a little longer. Sports commissioner Ramon

Fernandez, chief of mission of Team Philippines, has penciled 1 July as the possible start of training to give time for the pandemic to subside.

Fernandez said they will also look for local government units that can provide venues for the different sports.

Why they only thought of this with the SEA Games just around the corner is beyond me.

Good thing a few sports have earlier resumed training based on this model — archery, fencing, muay and weightlifting. At least we can count on them to deliver the goods in Vietnam.

The thing is, even if we restart the training today, it is already too late for athletes to reach peak forms by November.

Renato Unso, one of the track stars of the fabled Gintong Alay team of the eighties, said their athletes would practically be starting from scratch when they resume training in July.

“The first two months would be spent preparing their bodies for the tough training ahead which leaves us two months before the Games,” said Unso, now a top official of the Philippine Amateur Track and Field Association.

Unso said their request for the resumption of training under a bubble setup has been sitting on the desk of the Inter Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases since September.

Under the plan, the national pool will train at the same track oval used during the last SEA Games in Tarlac. They will all be housed in the same facilities used by those who took part in the Games.

No one would be allowed entry to the training facilities without being tested negative for the coronavirus.

And no one would be allowed to leave the “bubble” environment.

Unso said athletics is a non-contact sport and is held outdoors, much like golf which has been allowed to resume.

“It is easy to enforce physical distancing. You can even train by your lonesome if necessary,” he said.

Athletics contributed 11 gold medals to the country’s treasure chest in 2019.

Come November, we can probably get five or six since some of our top athletes are training abroad like pole vaulter EJ Obiena and tracksters Eric Cray and Kristina Knott.

But for the rest of our homegrown athletes stuck in their homes, winning the gold is too much to ask for.

Filipinos will find gold a rare commodity in Vietnam.

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ICYMI: The Philippines won only 41 gold medals in Thailand two years after ruling the SEA Games in 2005 with 113 golds.