With about six months to go before the 25th Southeast Asian Games opens in Laos, RP team chef de mission Mario Tanchangco pegs the number of athletes who will represent the country in the biennial met between 150 and 300.

Tanchangco also announced that football, water polo, cycling, and sepak takraw athletes will leave ahead as their elimination matches will start before the Dec. 9 formal opening.

“Football and water polo athletes should be leaving on Dec. 1 or 2 to give them time to rest before the competition,” Tanchangco, also head of the sepak takraw, said in a report posted in the government’s website.

Football games will start on Dec. 3 at the National Stadium and the Chau-Anu-Vung in Vientiane while water polo will start Dec. 4 at the Aquatic Center.

Cycling and sepak takraw athletes contests begin a day before the opening ceremonies.

Host Laos calendared sports like archery, athletics, aquatics, badminton, billiards and snooker, boxing, bowling, fin swimming, golf, judo, karatedo, lawn tennis, muay, pencak silat, petanque, shooting, shuttlecock, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and wushu in the 10-day sporting spectacle.

The Philippines won the SEAG overall title when it host the event in 2005 but skidded to sixth place in the Thailand SEA Games edition in 2007.

Despite the ongoing leadership crisis in some national sports associations and between POC and Philippine Sports Commission, the local athletes are hoping to bounce back from the Thailand’s dismal finish.

PSC Chairman Harry Angping vowed full support to the athletes and coaches as he increased the allotted budget for the country’s participation in the SEA Games from P30 to P35 million.*

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