As the three-week long Games came to a close Saturday night, the Filipinos found themselves good for just three gold medals, four silver and nine bronze to finish at 19th place in the overall medal tally.
Obviously, the finish was a slight lower than the 4-6-9 medal collection the country brought home in 2006 when it finished 18th overall.

Following the drop in form, top sports officials in the Philippines hope to sit down together in a special summit scheduled next week and discuss ways on how to turn around the current state of sports in the country.
Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Jose Cojuangco said he expects a post-Asiad report from the various National Sports Associations (NSAs) which were involved in the Guangzhou Games.

“These reports will be used as references when we discuss the state of Philippine sports during a summit scheduled on December 4,” Cojuangco said.

Buenavista, the last of the Filipino entries in 29 different sports out of the 43 at stake, capped the country’s campaign by finishing 12th out of the 22 runners in the field, clocking 2:45.07 or exactly 33.56 minutes behind winner Ji Youngjun of Korea.

Joey Romasanta, the PH Chef De Mission, said he’s proud at the way the Filipino athletes conducted themselves, but stressed at the same time, the valuable lessons learned from the campaign which the country can eventually adopt when it next compete in the 2011 Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia and the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
“The lessons are clear and we have to make the necessary and urgent adjustments when we return to our country if we are to remain as a country of note in sports. I believe that any country with an efficient sports program is a stable nation,” said Romasanta, who led the small number of PH athletes who joined the closing ceremony parade at Hai Xin Sha stadium Saturday night.
Likewise, Romasanta pointed out that the country’s athletes-to-medal ratio here still reflects significant improvements since Filipino athletes only totalled 188, 45 less during the Doha Games.

“That was our goal. We wanted to see improvements with the system adopted for this campaign and I believe we have achieved that considering that we had certain difficulties in the recent past,” Romasanta pointed out.

This developed as China, after a masterful conquest of the 2010 Asiad, bidded goodbye to some 10,000 athletes from 44 other nations, including the Philippines following the elaborate closing ceremonies that preceded the Games.

The city of Guangzhou put out the symbolic flame last night and looked every bit ready for the fancied next hosting job—the Summer Olympics—as it effectively set a benchmark that will make the continent a major force to reckon with in the 2012 London Games.