Asian Games Teams

Cambodia looks forward to participating the Asiad

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-10-29 11:37

PHNOM PENH - "Cambodian athletes are gearing up for the forthcoming Asian Games and looking forward to taking part in such great event to be held in South China's Guangzhou, on Nov 12, 2010," Vath Chamroeun, Secretary-General of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

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"As a friendly neighbor of China, Cambodia sincerely hopes that the Guangzhou Asian Games will be successful," Vath said.

Vath said that since peace was restored nearly 20 years and the steady social and economic development under the leadership of Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia's sports sector is stepping forward and has been under reform in recent years  - the reform toward advancement and toward a specific administrative mechanism.

"So we can see that the activities of training as well as the activities of the federations are being feverish (active) with actively participating from private sector and the public," Vath said.

"So in recent years, we have organized more and more regional tournaments in the country, meanwhile, sent more and more athletes to take part in the national and international competitions, such as the ASEAN table tennis tournament. This reflected a progress and we are proud of this achievement," he said.  

"We dare not to host before, but now we try to host in all types of tournaments, try to host international tournaments gradually," he stressed, adding that "this is the noticeable and proud progress in our sports sector. However, we still have a long way to go to achieve what we want. We remain low in term of technical level if compared to athletes in the region or world. We need additional capital and additional efforts."

He said that the Cambodian National Olympic Committee will sent a delegation of 35 people to the Asian Games. Among them are 22 athletes, eight trainers and five leaders as well as sports officials.

The 17 male and five female athletes will compete in running, boxing, chess, swimming, Taekwondo, tennis, volleyball on the beach and wrestling, and hope to get good result in chess match. " It is the first time that we have joined in Chess sport in the Asian Games," Vath said.

Three groups with four Cambodian athletes each are to compete in Taekwondo, beach volleyball and wrestling, while the rest with only two athletes of the five groups will compete in other subjects.

"The Asian sports techniques are very high, for example, Chinese athletes are not in the level of Asia, but in the world class, so we will try all our best. I hope the most that we can win is in Chinese chess, besides this, we also have some hope on some sports such as Taekwondo and wrestling, it can have chance to gain medals."

Vath Chamroeun highly valued the friendship and cooperation between Cambodia and China in the field of sports.

"Cambodia and China have the history of special friendship, such as the long-standing friendship between our former King Norodom Sihanouk and the leaders of China. These traditional friendship has left as legacy to us all until today, and we have seen that the two countries have strengthened the cooperation in various sectors including sports," Vath said.

Cambodia's sports has got much assistance from China. Last year China has provided gymnastic equipment to the Gymnastic Federation of Cambodia. And other Cambodian sports federations have also received technical and material assistance from China, he added.

He expressed the hope that the two countries would continue cooperation in sports to promote Cambodia's sports.