With Southeast Asian glory at stake in everything from football to bodybuilding and eSports, the SEA Games opened in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi on Thursday after a six-month Covid delay.
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More than 5,000 athletes, including Olympic champions, will compete for more than 500 gold medals in the event, which is to be held every two years.
The sports of the 11 nations include traditional Olympic sports such as athletics, swimming, and boxing, but also regional sports such as sepak confrontation, a lucrative volleyball-style sport where teams kick rattan balls.
Thailand’s taekwondo world number one Panipak Wongpattankit and Philippine weightlifter Hidillin Diaz, who won gold at the Tokyo Olympics last year, are among the top athletes on display.
Singaporean swimmer Joseph Schooling, who won the city-state’s historic first Olympic gold in 2016, is back home from national military service and hopes to regain his former form.
Host nations usually include sports in which they perform well, which have helped them win many golds, but there is criticism that this undermines the prestige of the competition.
However, with 40 games this edition, down from 56 in Manila in 2019, Vietnam insists it is looking for “fair play” with little room for local games.
“The hosts will have to work as hard as the other teams to earn gold, especially against Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia,” Tran Duc Phan, deputy head of the Games’ organizing committee, told the state-run Vietnam News.
The organizers however still added some local flavor.
This 31st edition of Regional Spectacular will be the first to feature Jiangqi, also known as Chinese Chess, which is wildly popular in the host country.
These games will also mark the return of the Vietnamese martial art Vovinum.
Events retained since 2019 include eSports, dancesport, a competitive form of ballroom dancing, and the ancient Uzbek wrestling art of the Kurash.
Malaysia won the first gold
The opening ceremony is on Thursday, but some competitions have already started, with Malaysia winning its first gold when diver Noor Dhabita Sabri won the women’s one-metre springboard.
These games were originally scheduled to take place in November, but were delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With the steep drop in infections since a peak of more than 200,000 a day in March, spectators in venues – they don’t even have to take a COVID test – will be unlike last year’s mostly fan-free Tokyo Olympics.
Only last week the 2022 Asian Games were postponed due to the virus. The multisport, Olympic-sized showpiece was due to take place in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in September.
The SEA Games are focused on Hanoi and the action is also taking place in the surrounding 11 northern provinces.
It is the second time Vietnam has hosted the games – the 2003 edition was hosted by Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City – and nearly 2,000 banners have been put up around Hanoi for Thursday’s opening ceremony at Mai Dinh Stadium.
Local media said thousands of people lined up overnight to collect tickets for football matches featuring the Vietnam team.
Some locals see the Games as a sign that life is returning to normal.
“We have gone through a huge COVID pandemic,” said 25-year-old Hanoi resident Nguyen Bich Ngok.
“Our government has put a lot of effort into organizing this SEA Games for our country and Southeast Asia.”
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