Laos will host 26 sports in SEA Games
KUALA LUMPUR: The Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) have clarified that Laos will host 26 sports and not 25 in the SEA Games from Dec 9-18.
The OCM secretary general, Datuk Sieh Kok Chi, said that recent reports were wrong and gave a picture that some sports had been dropped arbitrarily by the hosts.
“Some even claim that archery, cycling and weightlifting were omitted from the programme of the 25th Games in Vientiane,” he said.
“At the last SEA Games Federation Council meeting on Nov 13, the final list of sports and events approved and announced were 25 sports and 390 events. This is wrong as the Games organising committee had wrongly included soft tennis as part of tennis. Soft tennis has to be considered a different sport from tennis because it comes under the jurisdiction of a different international federation. Hence the total number of sports in the Games is 26 and 390 events.”
Kok Chi added that for archery, there will be eight events — four more than in the Olympic Games with the inclusion of the compound bows competitions for men’s and women’s team and individual.
“There will be no track cycling events as Laos do not have a velodrome but road cycling and mountain bike racing have been included with a total of eight gold medals at stake,” he said.
“The hosts have not taken advantage of selecting sports in which they are strong in because irrespective of what sports they choose, Laos will not be among the top five in the final medal standings.
“The sports dropped are based on non-availability of international standard competition venues, lack of equipment, the non-existence of their national sports associations for a large number of sports, insufficient internationally qualified judges and technical officials and insufficient human and financial resources.”
Basketball and waterpolo may still be included as there are discussions on the Philippines and Singapore to fund them at the Games.
The sports in the Games programme are athletics, archery, swimming, badminton, billiards and snooker, boxing, cycling, football, golf, judo, karate, sepak takraw, shooting, soft tennis, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, wrestling, weightlifting, wushu, muay thai, petanque, silat, shuttlecock and fin swimming.
SOurce: thestar
