Vietnam blasts 'silat'

Vietnam blasts 'silat'

JAKARTA (JP): The Vietnamese press has called for the pencak
silat event to be withdrawn from the 17th Southeast Asian Games
after a spate of injuries during a recent national competition in
Hanoi.

"The athletes lost too much blood and too many teeth,"
declared the official daily Lao Dong on Friday. This is the
second time the martial art competition has been held in Vietnam.

Some 30 pencak silat athletes reportedly suffered injuries to
the head and face. One male athlete, Hong Son, needed 13 stitches
and his teammate, Van Dinh, had to have two of his teeth pulled.

"The sport is much more like a street brawl," another daily
was quoted by the Oana news agency as commenting. The martial art
was imported from Indonesia four years ago.

Vietnam is grooming 256 sports men and women for the South
East Asian Games in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in December. It won
four bronzes in the pencak silat competition in the 1993 Games in
Singapore. (amd)