Austria key to Romeo’s transformation

WHEN Season 44 of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) blasts off tomorrow, January 13, San Miguel Beer remains the runaway choice to rule the league’s first conference.

Not surprising since the Beermen won the last four editions of the AllFilipino crown aka the Philippine Cup.

Not since the days of the fabled Crispa Redmanizers did the nation see a team as dominant as the Beermen in the conference confined to purely Filipino talents.

When imports are off-limits, SMB is simply unbeatable. Proof to this is the squad’s four successive victories in the All-Filipino Conference since 2015.

And, seemingly, the only four-time Philippine Cup champion can do it again. Hasn’t SMB just gotten a brilliant reinforcement in Terrence Romeo?

Beermen June Mar Fajardo, Arwind Santos, Alex Cabagnot, Marcio Lassiter and Chris Ross must be in Cloud 9 with the arrival of Romeo. Include the fact that Christian Standhardinger finally is now in full harness as a Beerman.

While Romeo has this infamous mercurial temper, he is never lacking in talent that can be of great use when the going gets rough for the Beermen.

In Romeo, you have to separate his idiocies MANILA -- Stop bickering and start thinking of the gold medal in the 30th Southeast Asian Games (SEAG), which the country will host this year.

This was the advice of taekwondo Olympian Monsour del Rosario as he urged fellow sports officials and athletes to set aside their differences and work together to ensure the country’s success in the biennial competition scheduled in Manila, Subic and Clark on November 30 to December 11.

“The Filipino athletes are talented enough to be the best in Southeast Asia, but we still have a lot of work to do to win the gold medals,” said the 1988 Seoul Olympics veteran during the fifth “Usapang Sports” by the Tabloid Organization in Philippine Sports (TOP) at the National Press Club in Intramuros on Thursday.

“As host nation, we have to do our best to win as many gold medals as possible,” added del Rosario, who bagged several medals for the country in the SEA Games, Asian Games, and World Championships from 1982 to 1989.

The 53-year-old taekwondo champion said he hopes to duplicate, if not surpass, the country’s historic 19th-place finish at the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) in Turkmenistan where he also served as chef de mission. The Philippines bagged two golds, 14 silvers and 14 bronzes while competing in 17 of 21 sports.

“In the AIMAG, I was given a free hand to call the shots for the 105-strong Filipino delegation. Like a war general, I planned the strategy for the team, worked with the coaches and athletes and even stayed with them at the Athletes Village. It worked to perfection,” explained del Rosario, also known in the sports circle as "Mr. Taekwondo".

The athlete-turnedpublic servant from Makati hopes to get the same support from both the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) and Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) in the coming