The usual problem

The Asian Games in Indonesia has come to a close with the Philippines clinging somewhere below the usual powerhouses in the medal standing. As in the previous staging of Asiad, the country seems to be comfortable being in the company of sporting laggards in the region.

With four golds, two silvers, and 15 bronzes, the Philippines settled for 19th place in the quadrennial games participated in by at least 37 countries across Asia. The performance of our athletes was not actually bad. It, however, just remained consistent with the country’s previous showing that brought home just a couple of golds.

As usual, China, Japan, and South Korea did not fail to stamp their presence as the nations to beat in Asiad, the world’s biggest sporting spectacle next to the Olympic Games. And every staging of the games, they managed to level up their performance.

It’s not really surprising why the Philippines continues to be sidelined to the middle of the medal standing. That is because we always lack the resources and preparations necessary to become competitive against the best in the region. This aside from the constant bickering of our sports officials that has gravely affected the athletes’ training.

Our athletes could have performed well in international competitions had the government and all sporting stakeholders designed a master plan that develops sports from the grassroots.

One of the major hindrances has been the prevailing individualistic approach by some sports leaders. This only created factionalism among those who govern the various organizations tasked to unleash the potential of our athletes.

The problem is that politics continues to dominate the daily function of our sports leaders. Rather than attending to their sworn duties to develop strategies that would harness the best of our athletes, these sports leaders opt to engage in useless power struggle, pulling down the country’s quality of athletes.

Unless, of course, our sports leaders will come to their senses, patch things up and unite, it will take many years for our athletes to develop their competitive form in international tournaments.