Basketball, softball dropped from Laos Games

NAKHON RATCHASIMA – Basketball and softball, two events dominated by the Philippines, are among those excluded from the initial list of sports disciplines announced to be played in the very first staging of the Southeast Asian Games in Laos in 2009.

Laos Sports Committee head Phouthong Seng Akhum rattled only 25 sports, including must-events athletics and swimming.

Also in the list are archery, badminton, bowling, boxing, football/futsal, golf, handball, judo, karatedo, muay thai, petanque, pencak selat, shooting, shuttle cock, snooker/billiards, table tennis, taekwondo, traditional boat race, volleyball, beach volleyball, wrestling and wushu.

Out together with basketball and softball are aerobics, gymnastics, baseball, beach volleyball, canoe/kayak, cycling, dancesport, equestrian, fencing, hockey, lawn bowls, polo, rowing, rugby, sailing, sepak takraw, squash, triathlon and weightlifting.

For most of these sports, Laos, which is certainly far more backward than the Philippines, is either not a member of the world federation or has no available facilities.

Akhum, however, said the list is likely to increase during the SEAG Federation Council meeting in Vientane, Laos in April.

“The council members can make recommendations there. We’ll discuss and see what happens,” said the Laotian top sports leader.

Akhum, however, said he’s certain a big number of events played here will be scrapped in the games’ first ever staging in Laos. He didn’t specify the events, though.

In the history of the games, the least number of events played in one edition was 20 in Brunei in 2001. Lack of sports facility was also the reason for the scrapping of certain events then in the tiny but oil-rich country.

But this early, there were already reports of lobbying. One suggestion is for Laos to share the hosting with close neighbors.

The SEAG Federation has 11 member countries but only Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam have taken turns in hosting the games.

Burma (now Myanmar) and Cambodia have hosted the games when it was still known as Southeast Asian Peninsular Games. It was first called Southeast Asian Games in 1977.

The 11th member country of the federation is Timor Leste.