Paddlers hopeful, appeal case to POC

MANILA, Philippines - Although the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) has emphatically shut the door on their Asian Games bid, the men’s and women’s dragonboat teams remain hopeful they could still go to Guangzhou, China, even at this late stage.

The 44-member contingent has appealed to the POC to reconsider its earlier decision delisting them from the roster to the Nov. 12-27 Games after a controversial time trial, the results of which were “questioned” by the POC’s monitoring group.

The POC board has said it had “concerns over the trials’ procedures and references used” and feels the paddlers are “not in the best of shape” for the meet.

“Right now, we’re still hoping and not giving up on our dream of making it to the Asiad. We’re exhausting all means to get us back into the team,” paddler Noelle Wenceslao said.

“For us, the Asian Games is the height of our international competitions because this is the first time that dragonboat will be played in the Asiad. We know China would want us to be there, because they want to compete with the best,” said Claire Montemayor.

The paddlers have sought the assistance of POC technical and rules committee chairman Go Teng Kok in trying to bring their case up for discussion again in the POC executive board meeting today.

While they keep their slim hopes, the paddlers admitted being demoralized and hurt by insinuations of “cheating” during the trials, where they easily met the qualifying times in the 200m and 500m as well as the 1,000m.

“There was no cheating whatsoever because we worked hard for it. We practiced three times a day and we achieved the qualifying times because we were too determined to meet them,” said women’s team captain Amina Anudin.