Phnom Penh: Cambodia began its first hosting of the Southeast Asian Games on Friday with thousands of spectators encouraged by free admission and transport.
The evening’s festivities welcomed athletes from across the region to the biennial multi-sport event, while touting the country’s rich history and thanking its long-ruling leader for recent modernisations.
The event, also known as the 32nd SEA Games, brings together more than 12,000 participants from 11 countries, with athletes competing in more than three dozen sports, including soccer, gymnastics, golf, martial arts, Esports and Aquatics are included. The elaborate opening ceremony included music and dancing, a display of lights leading up to the seating area and fireworks.
The participating countries are Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, Vietnam and host Cambodia. All are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations except Timor Leste, which only gained independence in 2002 and is in the process of joining the regional grouping.
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party is keen to generate enthusiasm and patriotic fervor around the SEA Games, with a successful event and good medals expected to boost national sentiment two months before parliamentary elections, which the CPP is almost certain to win. Will live like this.
Artists attend the opening ceremony of the 32nd SEA Games at the Morodok Takeo National Stadium in Phnom Penh on May 5, 2023. (AFP)
“For me, this event is wonderful. We have been waiting for this for 64 years,” said 24-year-old attendee Seng Meng Hong.
The SEA Games were first held in 1959 in Bangkok.
Meng Hong said, “I am very happy that the government can organize such an event so that Cambodians can come and support the national athletes.”
Tickets for the games have been given away for free and demand has been high.
Prime Minister Hun Sen announced in late March that for all sporting events, free tickets would be distributed to foreigners as well as Cambodians, and international broadcasters would not be charged for live television coverage rights.
He also said that Cambodia would fully cover the expenses of food and accommodation for the participating sports delegations, announcing that previous host countries had charged $50 per person per day for such services.
The Games are being held from Friday to May 17 at a newly developed sports complex on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh. Its centerpiece is the Chinese-built Morodok Takeo National Stadium with a capacity of 60,000.
Built and paid for by China, the stadium hovers over the open, wooded stretches of Phnom Penh’s outskirts like a crashed spaceship.
But its two dramatically peaked pylons also evoke the torpor and heft of the Chinese trading junks plying the capital city’s waterways hundreds of years ago.
Nearly everyone in attendance waved themselves with a hand-held fan or branded Cambodian flags – when not participating in an impeccably Mexican wave.
All stood for the national anthem as soldiers in ceremonial uniform performed the flag-hoisting ceremony.
The main production – a riot of gilded decorations, elegant costumes and spear-wielding warriors – tells the story of the kingdom, from its founding myths through the Angkor period. Athletes performed Kun Bokator, the national martial art, for the first time at this year’s Games.
Proceeding to mention a dark period, one speaker referred to the end of the “dark age of the genocide Pol Pot” in 1978 and thanked Cambodian leaders since then for “prosperity and peace”.
The most senior leaders among them were present.
Accompanied by dignitaries including the Prime Minister of Vietnam and the President of Laos, Hun Sen entered the stadium to thunderous applause.
The Prime Minister spoke briefly, expressed his gratitude for the peace in the country under his leadership, and declared the Games open.
Critics say Hun Sen, one of the world’s longest-serving leaders, has rolled back democratic freedoms in the country and used the courts to quell opposition as it prepares for a general election in July. Is.
Several SEA Games events have already been played, and the hosts now top the medal tally with five golds.
Events are in full swing on Saturday, with the Games running until May 17 before the Para Games in early June.
One sport has attracted particular attention this year, reflecting deep cultural animosity between Cambodia and its larger and wealthier western neighbor, Thailand, whose Thai boxing team is boycotting the Games.
The roots of the animosity between the two countries go back centuries, when they were two large and competing empires. In more modern times, the poor sentiment persists, as Cambodia’s development, hindered by French colonialism and the brutal rule of the communist Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, has fallen well behind Thailand.
Cambodia has on previous occasions unsuccessfully suggested changing the official name of Thai boxing – a form of kickboxing – to Muay Thai with more neutral, less nationalistic connotations. This year, because it is hosting the games, it was able to take more direct action, listing the games under the name Kun Khmer.
This action enraged Thai kickboxing enthusiasts and escalated the diplomatic hackles, to the extent that Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha stepped in to call, in vain, for an end to the “unnecessary” brawl. .
However, no country’s sports council would back down and Thailand decided to keep its kickboxers out of competition. It said this was appropriate as the sport is overseen by the International Federation of Muaythai Associations, which is recognized by the International Olympic Committee.
Cambodia has taken the event as an opportunity to polish its regional and international image.