Indonesia, host of the 2011 Southeast Asian Games, just announced 48 sports and around 550 events to be organized at the biennial tournament, which may stir up comments from member nations as the host dropped some favorite sports.
Members of the ten-nation SEA Games Federation Council including Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam fear the drop of several regular sports like Billiards & Snooker and women's football could affect the future standard of the games.
Vietnam are now the champions in women’s football.
Other sports severely affected include cycling, rhythmic gymnastics, petanque, sailing, shooting and table tennis as Indonesia SEA Games Organizing Committee (Inasoc) proposed to shorten many events.
Traditionally, the standard program of cycling in the past SEA Games comprised around 12 to 15 events, but Indonesia wants to stage only seven, comprising three for men and four for women.
Shooting is cut down from 36 as in the last edition in 2009 in Laos to just nine, while rhythmic gymnastics has only one event compared with five to six previously.
Though the host has the privilege to choose sports, Indonesia must also consider the sentiments of other participating countries, Olympic Council of Malaysia honorary secretary Datuk Sieh Kok Chi was quoted as saying today.
We'll try to negotiate with the host during the coming SEA Games Federation Council meeting in Bali on Feb 23-24, he added.
Besides dropping some favorite sports, the host has added new sports namely bridge, paragliding, roller sports, shorinji kempo and wall climbing.
It is said that the cut of the sports is rooted from Inasoc wanting to become overall champions at the games. Traditionally, Indonesian athletes were not strong at them.
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