Asean Para Games: Manila – Paralympic points at stake in 10th Asean Para Games
The meeting, which will be held June 8-9 at BGC in Taguig, is set to be attended by 11 member countries.
MANILA, Philippines – Expect the biennial Asean Para Games to be a lot more competitive as the biennial regional meet will soon offer precious ranking points for the Paralympics and other major international meets.
International Paralympic Committee president Andrew Parsons, gracing the Asean Para Sports Federation meeting here, said the plan is to make the APG an IPC-sanctioned event that participants use as springboard to bolster their Paralympic bids.
“We’d like to strengthen the pathway of athletes in this part of the world. We believe that the 10th Asean Para Games could be the best platform, the best first opportunity for the athletes. We’d like to sanction the results of this competition so they will have bearing in the international rankings so we can have more athletes qualifying not only for Tokyo (2020 Paralympics) but other games,” Parsons said during Friday’s presscon with APSF executives at Shangri-La The Fort in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.
The APSF is in Manila for a two-day meeting finalizing the details of the 10th Asean Para Games to be hosted by Philippines in January 2020.
According to Philippine Paralympic Committee president Mike Barredo, chairman of the APSF, the competition will be held majority at the New Clark City with 16 sports likely in the program.
Team Philippines hopes to make the most of the home advantage to improve its standings further after gaining headway in 2017.
“We’ll definitely try to field as many athletes as we can in as many sports as possible,” said Barredo. “We went up two notches last time, from seventh in Singapore to fifth in Malaysia and we’d like to target at least Top 4 and get more medals than we did last time.”
The APG hosting enjoys the full support of the Philippine Sports Commission, stressed Commissioner Arnold Agustin, who bared that the government sports body has approved an initial war chest of P5 million for the organizing committee to get the ball rolling and also okayed the PPC’s requests for equipment for the para athletes’ training.
To make for a smooth hosting of the 30th Southeast Asian Games in November 2019 and the 10th APG two months later, Barredo said the organizing committees of both events are chaired by Foreign Affairs Sec. Alan Peter Cayetano / Olmin Leyba (philstar.com) – June 8, 2018 – 4:42pm
