THE 32nd Southeast Asian Games are on, and the question on everyone’s lips, how will we fare out?

I am pessimistically optimistic about our chances, and this was how I put it last week when we had a mock press conference at the Splendido Hotel in Laurel Batangas for the Journalists On Training workshop I conducted with Pat Hizon for the Philippine Sports Commission( PSC), office of Comm. Bong Coo.

Participants were collegiate journalists from Ateneo, UST, College of St. Benilde, Perpetual Help College – Las Pinas, University of the Philippines, St.Scholastica, and LGU representatives from Makati, Quezon City, and Pasig among others.

I dwelt on sportswriting, Pat took care of mobile journalism, a good combination.

One activity I did was a mock presscon by the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Bambol Tolentino. Of course it was a make believe one as I pretended I was Bambol, but my answers to the reporters’ questions were definitely mine, not Bambol’s, okay?

.And so when asked how our athletes will fare out in the Cambodia SEAG, I told them, no, we cannot win the overall championship.

It is possible to do a podium finish, or we might just retain fourth place as we did in Vietnam last year, or worse, even finish fifth overall.

Fight will be between Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines with host Cambodia, doing everything they can except declare themselves automatically overall champions, as the dark horse, out of the 11 competing countries.

The reasons why I am pessimistic is the way Cambodia has stacked up the odds against all the competing countries, focusing or adding events where they have good chances while taking out events where other countries are strong.

This on top of limiting the opposition in the martial arts events.

No softball for one. One sure gold for the Blu Girls, possibly a double with the men’s.

No 9-ball or 10 ball in women’s billiards, only carom which our duo of Rubilen Amit and Chezka Centeno have not played in any competition, reducing the possible medals for Caloy Yulo in gymnastics

In soft tennis,I was told by defending singles champion she is not allowed to defend her singles crown as a rule imposed by the hosts, and I am sure, in other events too, they did the same.

Sorry but I am not so confident with our chances in men’s basketball, not with a last minute formation of the team and missing talents while defending champion Indonesia goes all out, with three naturalized players I heard.

The women’s team, going for its third straight title is more prepared.

But I am optimistic because I know our athletes will fight, guts will be a factor and we have that, a lot of our athletes have trained abroad, not sure though ifcdetaiks but sepak went to Thailand, women’s volleyball passed by Japan prior to going to Cambodia.

We will do well in athletics.Training durector Nonoy Unso says at least eight gold medals. Triathlon will deliver as usual, same as boxing and some martial arts events, same with gymnastics, billiards, weightlifting, and baseball , and did i hear right rowing has won two golds already.

But we will only really know at the end of the competition where we will be, and I can only wish our athletes the best of luck.

Hoping too that the next edition of the SEA Ganes in Thailand will be a more balanced one , abd objective too in terns of events included and competition rules, I think the other countries were definitely not happy with the way Cambodia did it this year.

LOOSE CHANGE: From training young journalists last week, we shift back to national athletes for our media relations training on May 17, this time for our differently anled athletes, thanks to PSC Comm. Wawit Torres…had a blast with our get together with old friends Fritz Gaston, Steve Watson, Mike Advani, and Dilip Budhrani, hosted by Mike at Dasma, watch out for my piece on that….by the way, I will be co hosting a radio show with old friend and schoolmate Teddy Perena, every last Monday of the month, still on sports. By Lito Cinco