CP to power Thais with nutritious food
Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group) will provide food and telecommunications support to the Thai contingent at the upcoming Asian Games and Asian Para Games in Indonesia, the company announced yesterday.
“CP Group has selected 12 special and favourite menus, which are nutritious, clean, safe and delicious for the Thai athletes to help boost their physical and mental strength,” CP Group executive Kachorn Chiaravanont said.
Among the foods are baked prawns with glass noodles and wonton soup.
The Asian Games will be held in Jakarta and Palembang from Aug 18-Sept 2, while the Asian Para Games will take place in Jakarta from Oct 6-13.
Forty-five nations will compete in 40 sports at the Asian Games with 462 gold medals up for grabs.
Thailand will send about 1,000 athletes and officials to the Games and aim to take home 17 gold medals.
They have high hopes i n several sports including sepak takraw, taekwondo, boxing, weightlifting, athletics and badminton.
The Thais won 12 gold, 7 silver and 28 bronze medals in the previous Games in South Korea in 2014.
They were sixth overall behind China, South Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan and Iran.
Meanwhile, Indonesia hope hosting the Asian Games will help revive the fortunes of their troubled national football team and act as a springboard for their qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the nation’s football association said.
Indonesia were barred from international football in 2015 due to government meddling in their domestic league, shutting them out of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup.
Fifa lifted the ban in 2016, but the men’s team is currently languishing at 164th in the world.
“Asian Games is a starting point and PSSI [the Football Association of Indonesia] wants to achieve more than that. If we have to set a short-term plan that would be the Olympics in 2024,” Joko Driyono, deputy chairman of the PSSI, said.