via CAAI
Thursday, October 28, 2010
PHNOM PENH, Oct. 29, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- "Cambodian athletes are gearing up for the forthcoming Asian Games and looking forward to take part in such great event to be held in Guangzhou, China on Nov. 12, 2010," Vath Chamroeun, Secretary-General of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia told Xinhua in an interview.
"As a friendly neighbor of China, Cambodia sincerely hopes that the Guangzhou Asian Games will be successful," Vath Chamroeun added.
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, from the public, more interestingly, more and more youth in playing sports as well as supporting sports sector," he said.
"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 added.
"Before we dare not to host, now we try to host in all types of tournaments, try to host international tournaments gradually," he stressed.
"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 added.
"Our National Olympic Committee will sent a delegation of 35 people to join the 16th Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou, China from Nov. 12-27. Among 35 people include 22 male and female athletes, eight trainers, and five leaders as well as sports officials."
The 17 men and five women athletes will compete in running, boxing, chess, swimming, taekwondo, tennis, beach volleyball and wrestling, and hope to get good results 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 apiece 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 live friendship between our former King Norodom Sihanouk and the heads of the government of China. These traditional friendship has left as legacy to us all until today, and we have seen that two countries have strengthened the cooperation in various sectors, as well as the cooperation in sports sector," Vath said.
Cambodia's sports sector, in fact, has been assisted many times from China such as last year, China has provided gymnastic equipments to the Gymnastic Federation, at the same time, other federations have also received technical assistance and material assistance such as Wusu, he added.
He also thanked the Chinese tournament organizing committee has sponsored both air-fares and accommodations for 30 Cambodian delegation for the upcoming Asian Game. He hopes the two counties continue to strengthen cooperation on sports technical exchanges and guidance in future to promote Cambodia's level of sports.
(Source: Quotemedia)
No comments:
Post a Comment