(KPL) Minister to Prime Minister?s Office and President of Lao National Sport-Gymnastic Committee, Dr Phouthong Seng-Akhom told a reporter of KPL News last week that is a honourable act for Laos to host the Southeast Asian Games for the first time and to commemorate the 50th year of SEA Games during this regional sports meet.
Dr Phouthong said Laos is the one of six countries, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Malaysia that founded SEAP Games Federation and it morphed into SEA Games.
The SEA Games is for the countries (presently 10) that form ASEAN and it is part of the Olympic Games network. It is held once every two years and the host country is selected on the basis of the order of the Latin letter.
?For the 1st SEAP Games in 1959 there were only six participating countries but today there were 11 nations (Timor Leste is the 11th nation and up to date it is not an ASEAN nation) and as hosting this sports meet is by rotation, so that nearly every country had hosted, with the exception of Laos, because of its socio-economic situation. But the situation changed when the SEA Game Council met in Vietnam in 2003 and asked Laos to host the 25th SEA Games in 2009 and Laos agreed to this request,? he said.
The contenders for the top three spots in this SEAG edition are Indonesia (strongest traditional powerhouse country), Malaysia (2001 SEAG over-all champion and placed 2nd in the 2007 SEAG edition), Philippines (3rd strongest traditional powerhouse country and 2005 SEAG over-all champion), Thailand (2nd strongest traditional powerhouse country, 2007 SEAG over-all champion and recently the strongest powerhouse country replacing Indonesia, placed 2nd in the 2001, 2003, and 2005 editions) and Vietnam (2003 SEAG over-all champion and recently considered to be the newest powerhouse country in SEA Games, placed 3rd in the last two SEAG editions).
Laos, the host country, is hoping to grab at least 25 of the tally of 383 gold medals. The Philippines team hopes to get at least 40 - 60 gold medals and she is trying to regain the championship title from Thailand.
The Vietnamese team is striving to get at least 60 gold medals and hopefully make it to the top three countries for this year?s SEAG.The Thai team is trying to crawl its way up to become one of the top countries in this year?s biennial event.
The Malaysian is hoping to secure at least 60 gold medals for this year?s SEAG. This lower gold medal tally estimate of Malaysia is due to the cut in the number of events by the host country.
