KUALA LUMPUR: The initial 22 sports proposed by Laos, the host of the 25th SEA Games, has come under fire from a number of countries, including Malaysia.
Laos, picked to host the 2009 SEA Games, has indicated it might only host about 25 sports, a far cry from the 43 medal sports and two demonstration sports hosted by 2007 host, Korat, Thailand.
Sports like shuttle****, merely a traditional game played by ethnic groups in Asian countries like Vietnam, China, Laos, Cambodia and fin swimming have been proposed, instead of weightlifting, snooker or basketball.
The sport of shuttle**** which resembles a hoop sepaktakraw match, uses feathers clustered together just like a shuttle**** used in badminton but played with the feet.
The shuttle**** game is divided into two basic types - the artistic (points for the most difficult moves with the feather ball) and the team play (played with a net in the centre and two players on each side, juggling and smashing the feather ball with their feet) and points counted just like in a volleyball game).
Apart from shuttle**** and fin swimming, aquatics (swimming & diving), athletics, badminton, boxing, football, golf, judo, karate, sepaktakraw, shooting, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, wrestling, wushu, muay thai, petanque, pencak silat, and traditional boat race are on the initial list.
The host country put forward their initial list of 22 sports with another three yet to be decided but we (Malaysia) and a number of countries who attended the SEA Games Council meeting feel that traditional sports should be done away with and regularly-featured sports included.
We have proposed sports like squash, basketball, weightlifting, hockey, snooker among others while other countries have also submitted their proposed list. The final list is expected to be out by November, Olympic Council of Malaysia vice-president Low Beng Choo who attended the meeting in Laos last week, told Bernama when contacted.
She said that Laos had also indicated plans to build a new sports complex just for the Games.
Building an entirely new sports complex is good news as they can include more sports featured in the Games, added Low.
