The Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) will form a pool of candidates for the Youth Olympic Games and the 2011 Southeast Asian Games (SEAG) immediately after the RP team to the 2010 Asian Games in China is finalized.

The PSC is in the thick of things in assembling the composition of the team to the Nov. 12 to 27 sportsfest in Guangzhou and chairman Harry Angping revealed that the agency will also help in naming athletes to the World Youth Olympics in Singapore and to the 26th SEAG in Indonesia.

The World Youth Olympics will take place in August this year while the SEAG in Indonesia will be held in 2011 in West and Central Java, South Sumatra and Jakarta.

“We will form a farm team for the 2011 SEAG,” said Angping.

Angping said the main thrust of the PSC this year will be the Asian Games, citing that all foreign trips that will be funded by the agency will be for the sole purpose of winning medals in the Guangzhou Games.

Meantime, Angping is more than willing to spend “millions in pesos” for a nutritional program aimed at correcting the dietary requirements of the national athletes

“We have learned that some of our athletes are malnourished,” said Angping, sounding very much concerned that these athletes continue to train and compete overseas without proper nutrition.

Officials of the Philippine Center for Sports Medicine have met with Angping twice and the PSC has decided that the diet of the athletes will have to undergo a major change specially that the Philippines is revving up for the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.

Members of the national and training pool dine at the PSC canteen but Angping said some of them might be asked to bypass the dining area in place of the dietary program that the PCSM will cook up.

Angping noted that the diet of one athlete from athletics will differ from those competing in other sports.

The PSC said the PCSM will come up with the program that Angping hopes will be put into practice by April.

“Aside from training, diet is also a major factor in an athlete’s performance,” stressed Angping. “If he or she is not eating the right food, they might not be able to reach their optimum level.”