By Michael Angelo S. Murillo, Senior Reporter
Team Philippines is set to compete in 46 sports events at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) announced on Monday.
Following consultations and driven by the mission to improve on the country’s performance in the last edition of the quadrennial sporting meet, the POC said it came up with the number of disciplines out of the 61 sports calendared for the event happening from Sept. 10 to 25 next year.
The POC submitted the list to organizers last Friday.
Filipino athletes will be competing in aquatics, archery, athletics, baseball, softball, men’s basketball, men’s 3×3 basketball, boxing, canoe-kayak and cycling MTB and BMX.
Also on Team Philippines’ list are dancesports’ breaking, men’s dragon boat, equestrian, fencing, men’s football, golf, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, judo, jiu-jitsu, kurash, karate, bridge, chess, esports, xiangqi, modern pentathlon, skateboarding, rowing and men’s rugby.
Completing the list are sailing, sepak takraw, shooting, sports climbing, squash, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, men’s and women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s beach volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and wushu.
“We submitted our list last Friday — the deadline — and we based our list on our effort to surpass our last achievement of four gold medals — in Jakarta — because we improved a lot in the Southeast Asian Games,” said POC President Abraham Tolentino in a statement.
Appointed as chef de mission to Hangzhou was Dr. Jose Raul Canlas of surfing.
In 2018 in Indonesia, the Philippines brought home 21 medals – four gold, two silver and 15 bronze medals.
Gold medals were care of weightlifting (Hidilyn Diaz), women’s individual golf (Yuka Saso), women’s team golf (Saso, Bianca Pagdanganan and Lois Kaye Go) and skateboarding (Margielyn Didal).
Team Philippines followed it up with an overall championship performance in the SEA Games in 2019 held here.
Team officials said they have started work in their preparation for the Asian Games to lay their plans ahead of the national elections next year.
“We started working on the Asian Games because next year is an election year, so it’s transition year for the PSC (Philippine Sports Commission),” said Mr. Canlas.
“I’m coordinating with [PSC] Chairman William Ramirez on how we are going to go about the budget right now.”