KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 — The final decision on the number of sports to be contested in the 31st SEA Games in Vietnam next year, will be announced this week.
Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria said the SEA Games Federation (SEAGF) would hold its meeting on Thursday and Friday to determine several matters including the number of sports to be contested in the biennial Games.
He said that the three SEAGF sub-committees, namely the Sports and Rules Committee, the Medical Committee and the Sports and Women’s Committee will convene this Thursday, followed by the SEAGF Council Members meeting a day later.
“At the meeting, the Sports and Rules Committee will discuss the addition of sports and we have the opportunity to defend the sports that we feel are worthy to be featured because we are also represented by the members in the meeting,” he told Bernama, yesterday.
Mohamad Norza, however, stressed that the SEAGF is expected to only agree to a small addition in the number of sports as several other Asean countries have also sent appeals to increase the number of sports based on their strength.
OCM previously appealed to the SEAGF to list an additional 11 types of sports namely indoor hockey, netball, sailing, tenpin bowling, squash, lawn bowls, cricket, seven-a-side rugby, skateboarding, floorball and sambo (traditional Soviet combat sport).
Last July, SEAGF agreed to list 36 types of sports involving 450 events at the 2021 SEA Games scheduled to take place from November 21 to December 2 compared to 56 types of sports involving 530 events contested at the 2019 SEA Games in the Philippines.
— Bernama
