The Cobra-Philippine Dragon Boat Federation won 5 golds in the recent International Dragon Boat Federation World Championships in Tampa Bay, Florida. Click HERE for more about the story.
Well, this team did not have any government support. They did not get a single cent from PSC. They were not even able to compete in the Asian Games because their federation was not recognized. Oh boy, what the heck is happening? Why do you think?
1. This sport maybe is not popular enough. The country is made up of over 7,000 islands and the Philippines is practically surrounded by sea but very few of its over 90 million population would want to be a rower. Ask a kid if he wants to be a rower when he grows up and I am sure you will even be surprised if they answered yes. Rowing is for fishermen and many of our fishermen even prefer to use an engine instead.
2. It's not a glamour sport. Look at the team. They are all Pinoys (pure-pinoys i mean) and most of them are members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. No cute fil-brits or flamboyant Fil-ams or even controversial Fil-shams. I am not even sure of one of them owns a twitter account. Heck, if one of them suddenly tweets to Sam Pinto for a date, he would probably get a "who u?" answer.
3. I guess it's not an olympic sport. In the over a hundred year history of the olympics, the country has never bagged a gold medal. How come we never win an olympic gold? Since the olympic fever is rising, I think the attention now is for our athletes to qualify for the 2012 Olympics. Dragon Boat racing? It is NOT an olympic sport. It's like ultimate fris-bee, flag football, or arnis. Maybe that is the reason why the POC cannot support it. Because if they support Dragon Boat, then they must support Sudoku, scrabble, flag football, rugby, and many other more. We have a limited budget in sports and with the strict mandate against corruption by the Aquino government, sports leaders can't afford to "waste" the limited budget. Yeah, why can't they train olympic rowing instead?
I do not know what to do with the organization. With their victory, I know a lot of politicians and networks would try to milk some publicity out of them. Many would give them rewards, accolades, and exposure. They are probably one of the hottest sports personalities behind the Azkals now. And the Azkals just lost recently. How meaningful would be the help of the people who offered to help? Are they going promote dragon boat race now in the grassroots level? If we pour millions to this federation, what are we going to expect? Are we gonna shift some of our young basketball players, swimmers, football players, runners into dragon boat rowers?
What do you think?
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