When Luang Sukhum Nayapradit, then vice-president of the National Olympic Committee of Thailand, first pitched the idea of a Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in 1958, he envisioned it as an opportunity both to raise athletic standards and increase cooperation in the region.
But the biennial sporting event—which just concluded its 32nd iteration, staged for the first time in Cambodia this year—has often been overshadowed by controversy, ineptitude, and nationalistic infighting: from repeated allegations of match-fixing to infrastructural failures (that at times have turned deadly) to a lack of standards that have led to the event being written off as a “gold-medal mine,” for a group of nations that are otherwise uncompetitive in global events like the Olympics or soccer’s World Cup.
This year was no exception.
In full: https://time.com/6280422/2023-sea-games-highlights-controversies-explained/
