pinoy wrote:
He is not the President of our NSA anymore.
We are developing our own athletes and drawing on our Fil-Heritage community. We live in an era of modern sport. We are getting athletes who are eligible to represent our country not buying athletes like the Middle East Nations who are getting athletes who have no blood connection with the country.
If Go is finally gone, your association might start producing some better athletes.
My idea for the Philippines is this:
Promote running (sprinting, distance running) competitions at schools throughout the country with travel prizes for all the winners to the next level. Get every school participating. Then city championships, province champs and national champs for Youth age. You will find some great talent - especially from the poorer areas. Use $ for this intead of for sub-elites on National team or recruiting over-seas
Train them in the Philippines. Offer top kids a chance to train full time. Don't concentrate on sending athletes to the US to train. That is short term thinking. Develop your coaches and young there. That is good long term thinking. Make it a government initiative, then use it to find talent. With 100 million ppl, you will find some fantastic athletes. The tall good sprinters will be high jumpers or long jumpers. The good distance runners will be great from 800 - marathon.