SEAG body to restrict hosts' sports choices
SEAG body to restrict hosts' sports choices
Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The South East Asian (SEA) Games Federation has agreed to
restrict host nations' choices of sports to be included among the
medal events in a bid to prevent gamesmanship, according to the
National Sports Council (KONI).
Vietnam hosted the SEA Games in 2003, and the Philippines will
host the 2005 edition of the biennial regional sporting showcase.
KONI secretary-general Djohar Arifin Husin said the
federation, during a meeting last week in Manila, agreed to
divide the sports into three categories, which would then be used
to decide their inclusion among the medal events.
The ruling was taken with a view to keeping the SEA Games in
touch with other multievent competitions such as the Asian Games
and the Olympics.
The first category consists of track and field, and aquatics,
whose inclusion in the SEA Games is compulsory because these are
classified as Olympic sports.
The second category consists of 35 sports that are
traditionally included in the Asian Games. The federation ruled
that the host nation should include at least 14 sports from this
category in the SEA Games.
The third category consists of 14 sports that are not included
in the Olympics or the Asian Games, but which are popular in the
region.
This category will enable host nations to include their
traditional sports, of the permittable eight, among the medal
events of the SEA Games.
The Philippines, for example, will include arnis, a
traditional martial art from the country, when it hosts the event
in 2005.
Djohar said this new policy, which will come into effect in
2007 when Thailand hosts the SEA Games, was meant to prevent host
nations, in a bid to top the medal tally, from choosing
traditional sports that appealed to few people outside of their
country.
"To ensure the host of the 2007 Games complies with the
regulation, the federation has formed an ad hoc team to assess
the proposed sport events," he said.
The team will comprise five sports experts from five
countries. Expected to be included on the team is Indra
Kartasasmita of Indonesia, who heads the planning and budgeting
department at KONI.
The 2005 SEA Games has announced a tentative list of 34
sports.
Tennis and weightlifting, which in the past have been gold
mines for Indonesia, are not in the list. These two sports
accounted for a combined eight golds in Vietnam for the
Indonesian contingent, which finished third in the medal table
behind Vietnam and Thailand for overall medals.