POC set to meet coach on 'dragon' row

MANILA, Philippines - The RP dragonboat team’s fate remains up in the air as the monitoring group that oversaw the paddlers’ time trials last Monday would not readily endorse their entry to next month’s Asian Games in China.

The joint monitoring group put up by the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) and Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) met yesterday with dragonboat head coach Nestor Ilagan in an effort to first “break down the paddlers performances, team composition and medal potential”.

And from this, monitoring head Jeff Tamayo said his group would present a “performance-based, factual report” to the POC executive board, which would make a final decision on the matter when it convenes on Friday.

“It’s really all up to the executive board,” said Tamayo.

The dragonboat bets surpassed the required Asian-level bronze times in both 200-meter and 500-meter events, besting even the gold winning marks. But problem cropped up in the 1,000-meter race as according to Tamayo, they used an incorrect standard, splitting in half the bronze-winning time in the 2,000m race in the previous Asian tilt.

Tamayo, though, admitted that the paddlers, indeed, “submitted a good time in the 200-and 500-meter races.”