Cambodia have finally finished fourth in the 2023 SEA Games medal tally, despite being top for the majority of the games. Despite the late slide though the host nation can bet termly proud of themselves, with this marking their best placing at a tournament to date.
What was Cambodia’s final tally?
The host nation finished with a total of 81 gold medals, 74 silver medals and an extremely impressive 127 Bronze medals for a total of 282 medals. This actually put them above 3rd placed Indonesia on total medals won, but behind them in value of medals.
The top three places went to traditional powerhouses, such as Vietnam (355), Thailand (276) and Indonesia (276). Fifth place went to the Philippines, who have around 6x more people than Cambodia.
Where were the big wins and loses?
As fully expected by everyone Cambodia did extremely well in martial-arts, partially Kun Khmer, thus putting paid to the naming spat with Thailand to do their talking in the ring. There were also huge victories in soft tennis, regular tennis, as well as surprises, such as the domination of the relatively new Cambodian cricket team.
Of course there were also disappointments, with the men’s football team failing to even make the bronze medal match and the women falling short to finish in 4th place though.
And there was the story of Bou Samnang, who despite finishing last has still managed to become national hero of sorts.
To read about Bou Samnang click here
Cambodia finish fourth – how doe sit compare?
In the last SEA Games Cambodia finished in 8th place out of the 11 nations that participated, with this making their achievements of 2023 that more impressive.
To read about the 2021 SEA Games click here.
How did they achieve this amazing turnaround? There were undauntedly good government decisions, such as upping prize money, as well as seeing many athletes on training programs abroad. Overall though the real reasons can be put down to grit, determination and the power that home support can grand to a country.
Yes there was controversy and of course not everything went to plan, but overall Cambodia did themselves proud both on and off the pitch. The Kingdom can now rightly bask in the glory that hosting and international event brings to a country.
Hopefully it will create a legacy that can truly be built upon.
This article is adapted from BPVE, (https://bpve.com/) reported and edited from the great team – Cambodia Sports Review. (https://www.cambodiasportsreview.com/)
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