NCFP pulling out RP ladies from Asiad
By Olmin Leyba (The Philippine Star) Updated October 18, 2010 12:00 AM
MANILA, Philippines - Citing a slim chance to land a podium finish in next month’s 16th Asian Games, the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) is pulling out its five-member women’s team out of the quadrennial meet in Guangzhou, China.
NCFP executive director Willie Abalos told The STAR that upon the instruction of NCFP president Prospero Pichay, he will begin facilitating the withdrawal of the women’s crew composed of WFMs Cheradee Camacho, Sherily Cua, and Catherine Perena, national champ Rulp Ylem Jose and alternate Jedara Docena from RP’s Asiad delegation.
“The NCFP has made an honest-to-goodness assessment of the women’s team and Cong. Pichay feels their chances are slim against opponents like powerhouse China, which won second place in the last World Chess Olympiad, India, and Vietnam, which beat us, 4-0, in the Olympiad,” Abalos said in Filipino yesterday.
“At the same time, this is in line with what the POC (Philippine Olympic Committee) and PSC (Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) have been preaching all along, which is not to send those with slim chances for medals to the Asian Games,” he added.
Apart from the “bleak medal prospects,” Abalos said the NCFP leadership feel the women’s team, which placed 44th overall in the recent Olympiad, does not have sufficient preparation for the Nov. 12-27 Games.
“They lack preparations and we feel the players are not fully concentrated on training, having to juggle training with work or studies. Some of them couldn’t even participate in tournaments we hold here,” he said.
With this, the NCFP will bank on the men’s team of GM Wesley So, newly reinstated board 2 player GM Joey Antonio, and GMs John Paul Gomez, Darwin Laylo and Eugene Torre for its medal aspirations in Guangzhou.
The five will compete in the men’s team standard competitions while So and Antonio will vie for the rapid individual gold.
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The reasons given for pulling the Philippines Women's Chess Team from the upcoming Asian Games are assinine, and I doubt anyone will believe them except suck-ups. At least be honest about it - it's about money. It's always about money. Philippines says it doesn't want to fund a chess team that doesn't have a chance to win a medal - so they cancel the female players because, after all, there are no "international stars" on that team. They will send the Men's Chess Team because of GM Wesley So. but guess what - the Philippines Men's Chess Olympiad team, which had "international stars" including So - sucked! It went into the games ranked 37th and finished in 50th place, while the Women's Chess Team composed of "no names" went in ranked 52nd and finished in 44th place - BETTER than the Men's Team performance. So much for the "international stars."The leadership of the NCFP sucks. Way to go, dudes, real encouraging for your country's chessplayers to know you don't back them 100%, particularly if they're female.
1 comment:
I definitely agree. The 4-0 loss in Vietnam should not be solely blame to the players but more doubt on how NCFP treated Filipina chess players. Maybe its time for them to have their own chess federation that will exclusively supervise everything from training, financial aspects, and exposure to tournaments. But that will take a lot of courage and a solid rock united Filipina chess players. Actually, its not a surprise why most of them are force to choose studies/work over chess like what NCFP stated above. The answer is crystal clear: discrimination.
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