2017 SEA Games could have more events

MANILA, Philippines – The 2017 Southeast Asian Games that will take place in Malaysia currently has 34 scheduled sports events with 342 gold medals to be awarded, but a few more sports may be added before the deadline.

Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) sports and rules member Julian Camacho was recently in Kuala Lumpur for a meeting among members of the SEA Games Federation, said a report from The Standard.

During a Philippine Sportswriters Association forum this week, Camacho said that other sports events will be discussed in the next meeting from August 17 to 31 in Malaysia.

According to Camacho, the Philippines is one of the countries campaigning for the insertion of other sports events like judo, wrestling, triathlon, baseball, and more.

The POC has also asked for associations of other sports to “formalize their requests for inclusion if they’re not yet in the list or their requests for additional events.”

“We’re giving them until March 9. We also asked them to write their own IFs (international federations) if they want to make an appeal. We will gather all the requests before we submit them to the SEA Games organizers,” Camacho was quoted as saying in the report.

(READ: Philippines finishes 2015 SEA Games in sixth place)

So far, these are the sports events slated to take place: aquatics, archery, badminton, basketball, men’s boxing, bowling, cricket, cycling, equestrian, football, futsal, golf, gymnastics, ice skating, ice hockey, lawn ball, karate, petanque, rugby 7, sailing, pencak silat, sepak takraw, shooting, snooker and billiards, table tennis, taekwondo, squash, indoor volleyball, water-skiing, wushu, and men’s weightlifting.

According to the report, the next SEAG Federation meeting is scheduled for July 13-14, followed by another one in August.

Camacho has indicated that the Wushu Federation of the Philippines “will strongly suggest” the inclusion of sanda (combat) in the next SEA Games.

“Malaysia wants 17 events in taolu and none in sanda, where our Filipino athletes are good,” he added. “Malaysia is not good in combat events.”

The report said that Malaysia “focused on the taolu (form) events, where the hosts have better chances of winning.” – Rappler.com