Tolentino confident of gold rush in coming week at SEA Games

BANGKOK. — The gold medals maybe coming in trickles in the first four days of action in the 33rd Southeast Asian Games here, but Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino’s confidence remains high and blazing.

“We’ll get there, I’m confident and I trust our athletes to go all out in the next six days and get to our modest target,” said Tolentino, who, ahead of the games, looked at matching or surpassing at the very least the country’s 58 golds won in Cambodia in 2023.

The Philippines had 15 gold medals—with 23 silvers and an abundance of 52 bronze medals—on Sunday morning for sixth place on the medal tally board which host Thailand is dominating by ruling 96 of the 208 events completed so far in the games that end Saturday.

There are still 366 gold medals—out of the 574 total—that are to be won starting Sunday.

“On target? Yes, we are,” added Tolentino in a hoarse voice caused by his incessant cheering for Filipino athletes especially in the finals that are held in the chilly Thai evenings.

Indonesia stood at second place behind Thailand—which also had 60 and 39 silvers and bronzes respectively, on the medals board with 43-37 (silver-bronze) after Saturday night’s hostilities.

Vietnam, who ruled Cambodia 2023, ran fourth with 30-30-54, followed by Singapore with 19-19-and Malaysia with 2516-15-48, while Myanmar and Laos each has two golds while Brunei and Timor Leste have yet to win an event.

Tolentino said there were gold medals that got away and expressed hope officiating in subjective sports will be more objective until the end of the games.

“We had losses that shouldn’t have been,” said Tolentino, hinting that the hosts are getting the better end in certain events tailor-fit for them. (MCO-EM)