OCM president Tuanku Imran Tuanku Ja’afar (front, third from left) and chef-de-mission Datuk Seri Dr Ibrahim Saad (front, second from left) with the Malaysian athletes and officials after the flag-handing over ceremony for the Asian Beach Games yesterday. - Pic: KHALID REDZA

THE inaugural Asian Beach Games in Bali on Oct 18-26 will be a chance for many athletes of obscure sports to pit their skills against the best Asia has to offer.

For some, Bali would be the first time they even come up against Asian opposition or compete in multi-sport games.

With that came the reminder from Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja’afar that they are still obligated to uphold the country’s image in terms of discipline and fair play when play begins at the Indonesian resort island.

“You will be representing not just your own sport but the whole contingent in front of a far greater audience and a bigger following than normal. It is important that you not only perform to the best of your ability, but also uphold the name of Malaysia and the contingent with discipline,” said Tunku Imran before handing over the ‘Jalur Gemilang’ to chef-de-mission Datuk Seri Dr Ibrahim Saad at Wisma OCM in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Malaysia will be represented by 62 athletes and 24 officials in 10 of the 17 medal sports being contested, where 64 gold medals are at stake, but only beach pencak silat is expected to deliver a medal or two.
Senior silat exponents Faizal Abdullah, Rina Jordana Adnan, Suzy Sulaiman and Emy Latip will spearhead the challenge of the 10-strong silat contingent.

The beach volleyball pair of Beh Shun Ting-Iswari Manokharan, bodybuilders Buda Anchah, Mohd Hamiruddin Haron and Jauneh Leman, triathletes Shahrom Abdullah, Chan Wai Yong and Irene Chong See Win and the beach sepaktakraw and beach soccer teams, who won the Desaru Beach Soccer Invitational Raja Muda Johor Cup recently, will also be hoping to feature among the medals.

Malaysia will also compete in beach kabbadi, paragliding, sailing, woodball and the demonstration sport of beach basketball with the entire contingent paying their own way to Bali.

No medal target has been set by either OCM or Ibrahim due to the difficulty of gauging the strength of the opposition.

However, as the Asian Beach Games does not fall under the government’s sports performance incentive scheme, any medallist in Bali will not receive the cash award given to Asian Games medallists. — DEVINDER SINGH

New Straits Times

MORE than one year from the opening ceremony of the 2009 Laos Sea Games, Malaysia have already lost 32 gold medals no thanks to the drastic cuts to the sports programme by the hosts.

The last Games held in Korat last year saw 42 sports being staged with Malaysia emerging with its best gold medal haul outside Kuala Lumpur by claiming 68 gold to finish second to Thailand in the medal standings.

But with impoverished Laos set to hold the 25th edition in Vientiane next year, the number of sports have been slashed to 22, which will result in nearly a halving of Malaysia’s haul from Korat.

However, to Malaysia’s consolation, regional powers Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam are also expected to take a big hit to their gold medal collection, which may lead to a fairer, albeit unpredictable distribution of the medals.

A precedent had been set when Brunei were hosts to the 1999 Games when only 19 sports were held, with Malaysia bagging 57 gold in finishing second to Thailand, an impressive haul vis-a-vis the number of events held.
This is precisely what Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) honorary secretary Datuk Sieh Kok Chi expects will unfold in Laos.

“Yes, we do stand to lose a number of gold medals but if you look at the number of medals in proportion to the number of events, then it won’t be too bad.

“It could turn out to be something like Brunei (in 1999),” he said yesterday.

From the 22 sports axed from next year’s Games, the loss will be keenly felt in archery (2 gold in Korat), basketball (1), bowling (4), cycling (4), equestrian and polo (5), gymnastics (6), hockey (2), lawn bowls (4), sailing (2), squash (1) and triathlon (1).

The 22 sports confirmed for Laos are athletics, aquatics (diving and swimming), badminton, billiards and snooker, boxing, football, golf, judo, karate, muay thai, petanque, sepak takraw, shooting, silat, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volleyball, wrestling and wushu, which were all held in Korat, in addition to fin swimming and shuttle cock kicking, which returns to the programme for the first time since the 2003 Vietnam edition.

Also dropped from the programme are baseball, bodybuilding, canoeing and kayaking, dance sport, fencing, handball, rowing, rugby, softball, traditional boat race, water polo and weightlifting.

But Kok Chi, who attended a Sea Games Federation meeting last Wednesday, said archery, basketball, cycling and water polo are appealing their exclusion and stand the best chance of being reinstated.

“Their reason for cutting down the events is that they either do not have the facilities and expertise to hold the sports concerned or that they do not have a team to compete in a particular sport,” said Kok Chi.

“But Thailand and Singapore have offered to provide assistance for archery and water polo while the Asian Basketball Association is looking into funding and organising the basketball competition. Cycling may return with the road races.”

The Games will mostly be held at the new US$70 million (RM241.6 million) Laos National Sports Complex, largely funded by China, in Vienthane in December 2009.

The complex, which is due for completion by March, features a 20,000-capacity main stadium, an indoor aquatics complex, a tennis centre, two indoor stadia and an indoor shooting range.

New Straits Times

SLUGGER Lee Seung-yuop hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning and the top-seeded South Koreans beat Japan 6-2 yesterday to reach the baseball final.

Japan reliever Hitoki Iwase allowed a leadoff single to Lee Yong-kyu to start the inning and quickly received a mound visit from manager Senichi Hoshino. After striking out Kim Hyun-soo, Lee delivered the South Koreans’ most timely hit yet.

Yoon Suk-min pitched a 1-2-3 ninth and met catcher Kang Min-ho between the mound and home plate and jumped into a celebratory embrace. Their teammates weren’t far behind.

The South Koreans (8-0) will play Saturday night at Wukesong Stadium against the winner of Friday’s late semifinal between defending Olympic champion and second-seeded Cuba or the No. 3 United States squad.

TEAM USA waited four years and got revenge for their humiliating semi-final defeat in Athens by outclassing defending champions Argentina yesterday to reach the men’s basketball gold medal match.
The NBA-studded team won 101-81 and will play Spain in tomorrow’s final.

Spain edged Lithuania 91-86 in the earlier semi-final to claim their second-ever Olympic final against the United States.

PHILIP Dalhausser and Todd Rogers of the United States won the men’s beach volleyball gold medal yesterday to add to their 2007 world title.

The Americans beat Brazil’s Marcio Araujo and Fabio Magalhaes 23-21, 17-21, 15-4 in a tense, tight final with bronze going to the 2004 champions Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego of Brazil.

The win by Dalhausser, 28, and 34-year-old Rogers marked a return to the top step of the podium for the United States who won gold at the Atlanta Games in 1996 and Sydney in 2000, but saw their domination halted at Athens in 2004.

“I’m on cloud nine,” said Dalhauser. “It’s the best feeling I have ever had in my life.”

WORLD champion Maris Strombergs of Latvia won the men’s BMX gold yesterday sweeping to the front at the start of the winner-take-all final and never losing control in the sport’s first-ever Olympic finals.

The French duo of Anne-Caroline Chausson and Laetitia Le Corguille took gold and silver, respectively, in the women’s title race.

“It wasn’t easy,” said Chausson. “All the mistakes I’ve made in the last few races, in the last few years, I tried to show nothing of them in these games.”

“It’s really the work of two years to end up here. It’s an immense satisfaction to get to here,” said Chausson, 30, for whom this was the last competitive BMX race.

But BMX racing was born in the United States four decades ago, so perhaps it was fitting that on the sport’s biggest day, American racers collected the biggest medal haul.

Mike Day and Donny Robinson won silver and bronze in the men’s final, while Jill Kintner took the bronze in the crash-filled women’s final.

THAILAND’S ex-playboy Olympic champion Manus Boonjumnong promised to fight “until death” after reaching his second consecutive light welterweight final on Friday.

Manus, already the first Thai to win medals at two successive Games, showed his class in a simple 10-5 victory over Cuba’s Roniel Iglesias, taking the applause after the first round when he was only 2-1 up.

He joins fellow countryman Somjit Jongjohor in the finals after the 2007 world championship silver-medallist reached the flyweight gold medal match with a comprehensive 7-1 victory over Italy’s Vincenzo Picardo.

“I will fight until death in the final,” Manus said. “I will try to get the gold medal for my king.”

IN the men’s K2 1000 final, Martin Hollstein and Andreas Ihle battled to a 1.771-second victory over Denmark’s Kim Wraae Knudsen and Rene Holten Paulsen.

World champion Attila Sandor Vajda added Olympic gold to his world title in the canoe single 1000, improving on his bronze medal performance in Athens.

Tim Brabants gave Great Britain victory in the kayak single 1000, posting a convincing wire-to-wire win over Norway’s Eirik Veraas Larsen and Australian Ken Wallace.

NORWAY’S women handballers will be desperate to avenge last year’s world championship loss to Russia in the Olympic final today and stop their opponents snatching gold at their first Games.

Norway, the reigning European champions, lost to Russia in the world championship final and has a dismal 5-1 losing record against their bogey team.

But the Norwegian women are favourites after cruising through their group matches in Beijing and their players have said through the tournament that Russia are the opponents they want to face in the final.

With two silver medals in 1988 and 1992, gold would be their greatest Olympic accomplishment.

Meanwhile in the men’s handball final France will take on Iceland.

MARIA Sharapova’s dresses may never make an appearance, nor the Williams sisters’ bling, but table tennis is at least trying to sex up its sport.

Some women paddlers gave a nod of approval this week to suggestions from a senior governing body official to wear skirts during matches to make their game more stylish in an attempt to pull in the crowds.

“We are trying to push the players to use skirts and also nicer shirts, not the shirts that are made for men, but ones with more curves,” International Table Tennis Federation vice-president Claude Bergeret said.

With loose-fitting shorts and baggy shirts the usual attire, table tennis, mostly played in bland gymnasiums around the world, has never had the glamour of women’s tennis nor the sex appeal of beach volleyball.

Wang Chen of the United States said some players were already moving to skirts.

“Some players are already wearing skirts, I think it’s a good idea, the game (already) looks more beautiful than before,” said Wang.

“I think women should wear dresses like tennis players,” the 34-year-old added. “I think our outfits are so boring, not sexy.” Wang said sexing up the uniforms would draw the crowds.

A SPORTS-LOVING princess from the United Arab Emirates made her Olympic debut at the Beijing Games yesterday as she was kicked in the head by a two-time world taekwondo champion.

“I’m pretty hard headed. It doesn’t bother me at all. I’m pretty used to it. I’m a tough girl. Don’t worry,” quipped 28-year-old Sheikha Maitha bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, a member of the Gulf country’s ruling royal family.

She bowed 5-1 to Hwang Kyung-Seon, six years her junior, from South Korea — homeland of the martial art marked by kicking, punching and yelling.

“It’s a dream and a nightmare at the same time. I couldn’t wait until it was going to happen. And now I can’t believe it’s over,” Sheikha Maitha said.

KNOWN for her explosive temper, Chinese No 1 Li Na says she has no wish to be the “model athlete” many in her home country expect her to be.

The 26-year-old has long had a fractious relationship with tennis authorities in China, but says she just wants to be herself and to do her own thing.

“In China, if you fit that criteria (model athlete), you are regarded as a good athlete. Otherwise, you are just a bad one,” she told the China Daily Friday.

“I don’t think it should be like that. I want to be free.” That’s why she considers American great Andre Agassi to be her idol.

“(Agassi) looks so free and unrestrained. He can do anything he wants, like having his ear pierced or a weird hair cut,” she said.

“That’s exactly what I want to be. For me, tennis is just a job.”

New Straits Times