Sports Unite Us

The 29th SEA Games

The 29th SEA Games held in KL, especially the athletic events, hold memorable moments for the writer
How sports could unite us?

WE are not east Asians, we are not central Asians. Nor are we west Asians and south Asians.

We are Southeast Asian. That was the spirit the Southeast Asian delegates attending the Asian Games 1958 in Tokyo wanted to inculcate after the meeting in which they had agreed to establish a sport organisation — the Southeast Asian Games Federation.

The following year, the region had its first games — the South East Asian Peninsula Games or SEAP Games, in Bangkok, Thai­land, with founding countries Burma (now Myanmar), Kam­puchea (now Cambodia), Laos, Malaya (now Malaysia), Thailand and Vietnam.

Then, in 1977, the federation changed the games' name to the SEA Games with the inclusion of Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Malaysia was the first country to host the first SEA Games.

Twenty-eight games later, Malaysia once again — after taking on the hosting task for five times — took on the respon­sible to host the 29th SEA Games from Aug 19-30.

The first event of the 29th edition was the 42km marathon event, held at 6am on the main boulevard of Putrajaya.

Also happening on the same day was a fun run organised by the Malaysia Organis­ing Committee KL 2017 which saw 15,000 runners gather for a run and subsequently, to cheer the marathoners during the SEA Games event.

Singaporean Guillaume Soh Rui Yong defended his SEA ^ Games marathon title that he won in Singapore 2015.

Indonesian Agus Prayogo, who is a 10,000m and 5,000m specialist, made his SEA Games Marathon debut. Malay­sian marathoners Muhaizar Mohamad and Leo Tan Houng Leong represented the country for the first time.

The favourites for the event were Soh Rui Yong, Agus Prayo­go and Boonthung Srisung of Thailand. Soh Rui Yong and Boonthung were the gold and silver medallist respectively from the Singapore 2015 SEA Games.

The race started with Agus leading the front pack. At 30km, Boonthung dropped out of the race leaving Muhaizar and Leo Tan in the third and fourth posi­tion, who kept pace with each other from the 30km mark onwards. We got excited that a Malaysian was in conten­tion to the podium.

Soh overtook Agus at the final 2km and finished in a time of 2:29:27 while Agus fin­ished in 2:31:20. Muhaizar made the final push and came in third with the time of 2:31:52. Leo Tan completed in fourth posi­tion with a time of 2:32:11. Read more>>>