Thread by @sergiewonder

I want to take a moment to offer perspective on the SEA games failure as somebody who loves sports— both doing them and watching them.

On competing: Morale

I don’t think a lot of people realize the gravity of knowing “ah after this, I have a nice bed to go back to. Or a nice shower to look forward to or a good meal to eat” and what it does for athletes during game day.

Forget the physical exhaustion for a moment because that’s already a given.

Imagine the during a competition— these athletes are bothered by things they shouldn’t even be thinking about. Lodging, food, where they have to go, etc.

Their only job is to compete and represent their country. It’s literally someone else’s (our government’s) to make sure they can focus on that.

Imagine how long these athletes are staying here. You don’t even have to compete to understand how lodging can ruin an entire trip for a person.

These people are the best in what they do and they have to put up with this?

I sincerely hope they have better accommodations eventually. but just demoralizing them with the lousy first night lodging, briefing rooms, buses, etc— wouldn’t be surprised if those throws them off their game.

On food:

Athletes have diets. I won’t talk so much about this.

Something not talked about enough: routine. Some athletes will have their own food if they don’t want to eat what’s offered.

They probably have a pre-game food, during game food (if allowed), and post-game food.

I’ll tell you why the kikiam incident bothers me a lot.

Forget the fact it’s cheap and the ‘nutritional value’ argument. It’s lazy. It’s absolutely lazy.

I’ve been to races organized by high school students, first time organizers, chucrches even- that serve better than that.

“But we’ll do better the second time around, athletes!”

Dear organizing committee, people who compete in sports take reviews on organizers seriously also. I guarantee you if SEAgames was optional and we host it again, I don’t blame these athletes for not wanting to come back.

I have seen races been boycotted/not supported because they don’t throw their plastic or because the food they serve stinks, or because a water station is a kilometer too far.

Is there a formal evaluation done after? I hope it’s taken seriously so this never happens again.

On our PH athletes:

Ito mga pinakakawawa.

So many of them aren’t funded. And now they have to be put in a situation where they represent us and carry the shame of the lousy job done by the organizing committee.

It is difficult enough to have to compete on a high level without support, now they have to worry about not voicing out their complaints?

Our athletes are getting cut for speaking out. They can’t even compete because they’re telling what we already know: so many events are—

a bust. Non-athletes are sharing everything because they know the bare minimum is barely being met for a lot of these places.

I won’t waste characters telling you what good briefing rooms are because it’s supposed to be common knowledge.

Last thing for now, on respect:

All these athletes worked tirelessly to be here. The least our government could have done is show them respect.

International media probably won’t pick up how these “leaders” are pointing fingers at each other. Can they please focus on the athletes.

It’s embarrassing that private companies and other countries are offering support already. This was supposed to planned properly with this big a budget— but everyone else is already talking about that

I sincerely hope that at the closing ceremony (if there is one), our government apologizes deeply to every single one of these hard working people.

We messed up big and the whole world needs to know how sorry we are.

If Toyko2020 or any other event mistreats our athletes just a little bit, I guarantee you we’ll be all over them on social media also. I say we hold our government to the same standard.

I write this as a proud Filipino and athlete: protect and respect our athletes. It’s literally the bare minimum of what a host country’s supposed to do.