Brunei sticks to planned 21 events for SEA Games

JAKARTA (JP): Host Brunei Darussalam is refusing to budge from its plan to stage 21 events at the 20th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in August, despite renewed calls by participating countries for 10 additional events, an official said Thursday.

The secretary-general of the National Sports Council (KONI), Rudolf Warouw, said the disagreement would highlight a plenary meeting of the region's sports leaders in the near future.

"Brunei has always said it is unable to organize certain competitions due to its lack of sports facilities. We will intensify our lobby ahead of the meeting to succeed in our bid for more events in the Games," Warouw said.

The sports executives gathered once in October, but Brunei SEA Games organizers have yet to set dates for the next three scheduled meetings.

According to a SEA Games Federation rule, a sport needs at least four supporting countries and three participating delegations to be included on the event roster.

First-time host Brunei has listed the medal sports of track and field, badminton, basketball, billiards and snooker, boxing, cycling, soccer, golf, hockey, karate, pencak silat, polo, sepak takraw, shooting, squash, swimming, table tennis, tae kwon do, tennis, rowing and canoeing and bowling.

Other participants are dissatisfied with the selection. They are recommending that Brunei also feature yachting and bowls (Singapore), wushu and wrestling (Vietnam), judo (Indonesia), fencing (Philippines), volleyball, body building and archery (Myanmar) and the traditional sport of pentangue (Laos).

The last Games hosted by Indonesia in October 1997 fielded a record 34 sports with 448 gold medals up for grabs.

Warouw said the organizers set a Feb. 28 deadline for each participating country to register its competing athletes for 21 sports. The second registration will be made one month prior to the Games.

"I have asked the council chief of athletes development to pick only athletes with great prospects of winning medals. The SEA Games is not a tryout," Warouw said.

He said a national congress held by KONI later this month would include Indonesia's target at the SEA Games in its agenda.

"We will discuss our general strategy for the SEA Games. It remains a big question whether we will send our athletes now being groomed for the 2000 Olympics to Brunei," he said.

"In my opinion, we can send them to the SEA Games as long as it does not disrupt their preparation for the Olympics." (yan)