Thais reclaim overall title with big haul
Thailand have dethroned Indonesia to emerge as the overall champions at the 8th Asean Para Games in Singapore.
The Thais, who were beaten by Indonesia in the seventh edition in Myanmar two years ago, captured 95 gold, 76 silver and 79 bronze medals in Singapore to claim overall crown for the sixth time. Thailand had fielded 271 athletes in 14 sports in the Games.
Indonesia were distant second with 81 gold, 74 silver and 63 bronze medals, while hosts Singapore came in fifth with 24 gold, 17 silver and 22 bronze medals.
The most prolific sport for Thailand was athletics (30 gold medals), followed by table tennis (17) and swimming (15).
Jutinan Bhirombhakdi, president of the Thailand National Paralympic Committee, congratulated all the athletes on their fine performances at the Games.
“Our athletes produced good results again but athletes from other countries have also improved,” Jutinan said.
“We need to continue improving our athletes while preparing for the Paralympic Games.”
NPC’s general-secretary Osoth Bhavilai said the country should have won more gold medals but some events were struck off the programme.
At first 476 gold medals were expected to be contested in Singapore but 152 events were removed because of lack of participants.
Osoth added that for the next edition in Malaysia in 2017, Thailand would not find it easy to defend their title because a large number of country’s athletes will be too old to compete.
The next mission for the Thais is to qualify for the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. So far, 16 athletes have already earned tickets to the Games but Thailand hope to have 40 more.
All Thai medallists at the Singapore Games will receive cash rewards from the Sport Authority of Thailand, with a gold medal being worth 50,000 baht, silver 30,000 baht and bronze 20,000 baht.
Osoth, who has been elected the new president of the Asean Para Sports Federation (APSF), said: “Some important events were not staged in Singapore and we need to get them reinstated in the next edition.
“We must make all such events mandatory so that we can have a continuous development.”