After three days of competition at the 28th Southeast Asian Games in Singapore, Cambodia has so far won one gold, a silver and two bronze medals, putting it in eighth place out of 10 countries.
On Saturday, Cambodia took two medals in sepak takraw, a sport of Malaysian origin that involves kicking a ball over a net, said Ros Salin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.
The men’s sepak takraw team won a gold in the chinlone linking event and a bronze in the chinlone non-repetition secondary, Mr. Salin said.
He added that also on Saturday, Sok Chanmean took silver in the men’s petanque and Ke Leng won bronze in the women’s petanque.
“I feel proud and happy and this result is acceptable because we have just been [competing] for a few days,” he said.
Mr. Salin said that while he was optimistic Cambodia would perform well in the remainder of the games, he was also disappointed that taekwondo star Sorn Seavmey—who won a gold medal at the Asian Games in South Korea last year—could not compete.
According to Mr. Salin, Ms. Seavmey was ineligible because Singapore decided to remove her weight class from the SEA Games this year.
“We are sorry that Seavmey did not join in this competition. If she had joined, we hoped she would win medals, because she is a good athlete at the Asian level,” he said.
He added that of the 22 sports Cambodia will take part in at this year’s SEA Games, he thinks Cambodia stands the best chance at medaling in boxing, petanque, tennis and canoe racing.
“I hope Cambodia will get more medals because we still have many more kinds of sport in the competition,” he said.
On Sunday, Takizaki Kuniaki, a Japanese comedian better known as “Hiroshi Cat” who represents Cambodia in international running competitions, came in sixth place in the men’s marathon after getting lost on the course during heavy rain, the Associated Press reported.
“I got a bit lost…. Everybody was lost, or not sure of the right way. But it was the same for everyone,” he told the news agency.
