Early post-mortem

This early, our sports officials are looking beyond the debacle of Beijing and what the country really needs to at least finish respectably in international competition like the Olympic Games. A lot of the comments focused on the lack of exposure of our athletes in international competitions.

“What they noticed in Beijing is that there is still that nervousness of being in the Olympics,” said PSC commissioner Eric Loretizo. “We have to eliminate that for our athletes to do better.”

On the other hand, in the case of taekwondo jin Tshomlee Go, who lost in his first bout to Australian Ryan Carneli, faulty judging may have been one of the culprits.

“There were five kicks which we felt should have scored, but did not get any points,” revealed PSC chairman Butch Ramirez, who voiced his disapproval. “The judges were not scoring them.”

Observers noted that, later on during the matches Wednesday, the judges conferred with the referees voicing their concern that some points were not being awarded. A similar scenario plagued boxer Onyok Velasco in Atlanta in 1996, when he was doing all the hitting, but Bulgaria’s Daniel Petrov Bojilov was getting the points.

For some of our athletes, being in Beijing was an awesome experience in itself, and their performance was satisfactory, at least for them.

“My goal was really to make it to the middle of the pack,” 18-year old swimmer Ryan Arabejo told The STAR. “Break some Philippine records. I’m pretty happy with how I did.”

Arabejo, who swam the men’s 1500-meter freestyle, also says that he feels he can do better.

“In my event, height isn’t really a factor,” the student from Jacksonville, Florida explains. “I feel I can still do a lot better. I think we can medal.”

However, these explanations and expressions of satisfaction will not satisfy our own officials, who have called for yet another sports summit, in light of the surprising elimination of boxer Harry Tañamor and Go.

“During our time, that was exactly our focus, to implement the Covenant for Philippine Sports,” says former PSC chairman Philip Ella Juico. “But the problem is, whenever new sports officials are appointed, they either disregard or even worse, undo what their predecessors have done. There is no continuity. And we have to go out and identify the talents early on, wherever they are.”

To clear the air, Ramirez for his part says he is willing to take responsibility for the results of Beijing. But he clarifies that it is not the PSC that selects the coaches or crafts the training programs of the athletes, but the national sports associations (NSAs) that do so. The PSC stepped in to send the athletes abroad, but, in the case of boxing, it was already too little, too late.

“We have oversight functions, and the power to review what happened, then study possible sanctions,” says Loretizo, who is also in charge of Winter sports for the PSC. “But this is all after the fact.”

Given that Ramirez was livid that NSAs responsible for the horrible performance in Beijing are quiet about their responsibility, he is moving for a revamp of these sports. However, that is difficult to do, considering that the NSA heads can always hide behind the shield of “government intervention” whenever the PSC attempts to rectify their shortcomings.

Is it really the system, or the people who man it? In my book, it’s the latter. And they never come clean about it.