I hope our athletes make an impact — Dayrit

BUSAN — He just flew in Sunday evening and, in fact, missed the staging of the opening ceremony before a cheering, camera-clicking crowd of almost 60,000 at the Busan Asiad Main Stadium here.

But Celso Dayrit, president of the Philippine Olympic Committee, was quick to make up for lost time.

Dayrit got up early on Monday, made a short visit on the fencing hall, checked on the RP quarters inside the spacious athletes’ village for the first time, and planned to watch the interesting RP vs North Korea basketball game in the afternoon.

"I understand na maganda ang opening and that the Philippines made an impact," said the fencing president, referring to the members of the RP delegation who waved to the crowd, then simultaneously opened and twirled colorful umbrella as they marched during the opening ceremony.

"I hope it continues… that our athletes will make an impact and perform well," said Dayrit, wearing a gray suit and in the company of his lovely wife Cynthia, just outside Bldg. 113 where the RP athletes and officials are staying.

Looking at the surroundings, the POC president immediately like what he saw.

"This village is a lot better than the one in Sydney (Olympics). That one was more like a temporary facility while this one has a community atmosphere, I’m looking forward to meeting our athletes," he said.

Dayrit, in his first Asian Games as head of the POC, is looking forward to a fruitful campaign by the Filipino athletes in this port city which has a growing population of almost 3.7 million.

"I hope that from this time on, we’ll be seeing a lot of better results. Let’s keep on being confident. I think everybody’s looking forward to the Games. The atmosphere is very good and the weather is very condusive for a good performance. I just visited the fencing hall and the facilities are very excellent," said Dayrit who, just a week ago, declared a target of at least five gold medals for the Philippines in the biggest Asian Games since 1950.

"This is not to put pressure on our athletes but to show them that we’re that confident. This is a better quality team than in 1998 (Bangkok Asian Games) where we only won a single gold," he said. — Abac Cordero