It is not good enough
Olympic chief fumes about ‘lack of commitment’ after SEA games flop
Olympic Committee of Thailand secretary general Charouck Arirachakaran is calling for a big reshuffle in the swimming and athletics associations after their sports flopped in the just-concluded 29th SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.
Once the powerhouses of track and field and swimming in this region, Thailand won just nine gold medals in track and field, only two in the track competition, and three in swimming.
The Athletics Association of Thailand and the Thailand Swimming Association vowed to win 14 golds and five gold medals respectively but came up short.
Overall, Thailand won just 72 gold medals, a sizeable 48 short of 120 golds predicted by the Sports Authority of Thailand.
Among the biggest disappointments were gymnastics, bowls, archery and fencing, none of which won a single medal, while boxing only returned two and the w9omen’s footballers failed to win a much hoped-for gold.
Charouck was most unhappy with swimming and athletics and said the governing bodies of both sports needed to improve their handling of their athletes while coaches needed to be more attentive to their training.
“For swimming, it’s time for parents to step back and let the association take care of the training programme. Swimmers should no longer train separately on their own,” said Charouck.
“Athletics was such a huge disappointment. I have no idea what’s going on. There is no commitment from either the coaches or the athletes. The coaches in particular cannot be negligent. This sport is very important as it used to yield a lot of gold medals for us.”
The OCT executive praised the national football team for successfully defending their gold medal.
It was far less happy with Thailand’s overall performance as host country Malaysia topped the medals table with 145 golds.
Charouck also said the local Muay Thai body and its executive board should be held responsible if an allegation from national Muay Thai coach Surat Seanglor on an “arranged medals” deal between the host nation and Muay Thai body was found to be true.
Muay Thai boxers reached the final in five events but only two won which Surat later revealed that there was a pre-agreement about the gold medal allocation.
