Cambodian athletes are waging a lonely war this week.
With few fans to cheer them on, and using skills learned while training amid the crushing poverty at home, a delegation of Cambodia’s 17 best athletes are relying on little more than grit and courage to face down their competitors from athletic powerhouses Japan and China in the 14th Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, which opened Sept 29.
Few people expect Cambodia to bring home a medal before the games close Oct 14, but there have been surprises.
Featherweight boxer Troeung Sosvannaka hammered his opponent from Macau—a referee stopped the fight—while a pair of young snooker sharks who honed their skills in Phnom Penh pool halls stunned a South Korean team in snooker doubles.
The South Koreans sobbed after their surprising loss, according to Chhuong Leng, administration officer of the National Olympic Committee Secretariat, who called Korea from Phnom Penh this week for updates.
Tae Kwon Do star Meng Sokry remains Cambodia’s strongest medal hope, considered a contender for a bronze medal after training for three months earlier this year in Korea.
But other matches for the Cambodians have been like the gritty battle of boxer Mean Soeurn, who lasted four rounds Thursday against a taller opponent in his bantamweight bout before losing on a referee’s decision.
Snooker doubles contenders Neang Tola and Chrin Sophanna saw their luck run out Tuesday after a 3-1 loss to Pakistan.
No one would blame the athletes for feeling happy just to have made it to Busan: It was only after a collection of South Korean corporations agreed to pay travel costs that the athletes and 13 coaches and staff were able to go.
Cambodia is not alone in sending a small delegation: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei, Laos, Syria, Yemen, East Timor and the Palestinians have all sent teams of fewer than 50 members.
Though tiny nations have scored Asian Games success before—Syria won two silvers and four bronze medals four years ago at the 13th games in Bangkok—most are happy just to compete.
“I am proud of playing for my country and will show the world that we have athletes regardless of the result,” Afghan soccer player Rahil Mohammad told Reuters before losing 10-0 to Iran.
“Under the Taliban we had to play in long trousers and grow long beards,” Basher Ahmad Sahadat, a 23-year-old civil engineer who featured against Iran, told Reuters. “But we played a lot of football because we didn’t have any jobs.”
Who competes in the games isn’t just determined by a geographer’s precise maps and borderlines. Politics, history and sports traditions play a big role, too.
Russia is an excellent example. Much of the sprawling country is in Asia, and its borders stretch far past Japan and Korea. It also has more square kilometers in Asia than the 44 nations competing.
Yet, the Russians aren’t in the games. Their absence has nothing to do with fears that they would snap up many of the medals, the games’ organizers say.
“It’s just a matter of choice for them to be in Europe,” said Abdul Muttaleb Ahmad, director-general of the Olympic Council of Asia.
Besides, most Asians naturally consider Russians to be Europeans, said Darshan Singh, president of the Asian Cycling Confederation.
The countries represented in the Asian Games belong to the Olympic Council of Asia, formerly called the Asian Games Federation, founded in 1949. The OCA holds the Asian Games every four years and acts as the region’s representative to the Olympic Games.
One other nation that’s conspicuously absent from the games is Iraq. All of the country’s immediate neighbors—except Turkey—are in the games: Syria, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
In Iraq’s case, its exclusion involves politics and contemporary history. Iraq’s membership in the Olympic Council of Asia was suspended after its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and it has not been reinstated. The OCA is based in Kuwait.
Like Iraq, Israel is sitting on the sideline while its neighbors—and a team called “Palestine”—compete in the Asian Games.
The last time the Israelis played in the games was in 1974 when the event was held in Tehran, Iran. Arab nations, which have opposed Israel’s existence, led a campaign to end the country’s participation in the Asian Games.
“For 20 years, we belonged to nowhere,” said Efraim Zinger, the secretary-general of Israel’s Olympic Committee.
The vastness of the Asian Games territory was again underlined when the Olympic Council of Asia announced recently that the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun will host the 2007 Winter Asian Games and Beirut, Lebanon, will get the event in 2009.
•The athletes at the games include runner Pith Kong, swimmers Ven Malyno and Hem Kiry, snooker players Neang Tola and Chrin Sophanna, boxers Mak Sophat, Roeung Sarath, Mean Soeurn, Troeung Sovannak, Sam Sokunthea and Ath Samreth. Tae Kwon Do fighterts Ek Sithoeun, Cheat Khemara, Bout Vichet, Mao Sophal, In Phanna and Meng Sokry.
