Phl finishes 19th in Asiad
Philippines placed 19th overall at the end of the 18th Asian Games yesterday in Indonesia.
The Filipino athletes moved three notches up from its showing in the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, but they still finished behind Southeast Asian neighbors Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore heading to their SEA Games battle in Manila next year.
The Philippines had a medal harvest of 4-2-15 as against Indonesia’s 31-24-43, Thailand’s 11-14-46, Malaysia’s 7-13-16, Vietnam’s 4-1618 and Singapore’s 4-4-14.
Philippine Olympic Committee president Ricky Vargas hoped the country’s silver and bronze medals here can be improved to gold in the SEA Games.
“The problem is that the other Southeast Asian teams also had their silver and bronze medals here,” said Vargas, admitting the country could have a hard time winning the overall championship even if it is the host of the 2019 SEA Games.
“We have to manage the events if we’re to have a chance to win – limit the events in sports that we don’t have a chance of winning,” he said.
Despite the country’s improvement in the Asian Games, Vargas realized “there are so many things that we still need to do.”
The Philippines did improve from its 22nd ranking in the 17th Asiad in Incheon where Filipino athletes were good only for one gold, three silver and 11 bronze medals. Thailand was the best SEAG team then with 12-7-28, followed by Malaysia (5-14-14), Singapore (5-6-14), Indonesia (4-5-11), Myanmar (2-1-1) and Vietnam (1-10-25).
Team Phl matched its four-gold outputs in 1978 in Bangkok and 2006 in Doha on the tremendous “woman power” that the country drawn here.
Skateboard champ Margie Didal stayed around and did the honors of carrying the country’s flag in the parade during the closing ceremonies at the Gelano Bung Karno Sports Stadium here last night.