Asian Games: Paddlers scratched from final Asian Games roster

THE national men’s and women’s dragonboat teams have been scratched from the national delegation set tp see action in the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou.

The executive board of the Philippine Olympic Committee decided to delist the national paddlers from the national roster after it evaluated the findings of the monitoring committee, which oversaw Monday’s test races at the La Mesa Dam in Quezon City.
“The board maintains that the time trial results reflected that our dragonboat teams are not in the best of shape for the Asian Games considering the quality of the competitions,” said POC chairman Monico Puentevella.
With the paddlers out of the delegation, the national contingent will now have 196 athletes who will see action in the quadrennial meet.
Monitoring head Jeff Tamayo earlier cited numerous circumstances for not scratching the paddlers from the national contingent.
He reasoned out that the delay in their exposure in international meets was a primary concern, and that most of the paddlers who are detailed with their mother units in the armed forces were not allowed to take part in competitions abroad.
And secondly, the team’s clocking could not be used as a basis for qualification since the Asiad uses a longer distance.
The 22-member men’s squad has actually surpassed the the 200m standard of 47.74 seconds with a time of 41.88 seconds, which beat Indonesia’s winning time of 42.15 seconds in Penang. Peter Atencio