370 ATHLETES AND 120 OFFICIALS

The Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) are expected to send a contingent comprising 370 athletes and 120 officials for the Laos SEA Games, held from Dec 9-18.

OCM Honorary secretary Datuk Sieh Kok Chi said the list by numbers had already been sent to the Laos SEA Games Technical committee recently while the final name list would be send on Oct 26.

"The smaller number of athletes is due to Malaysia athletes competing in only 21 of the 25 sports contested," Kok Chi told Bernama here on Tuesday.

Malaysian athletes would feature in swimming, diving, archery, athletics, badminton, snooker & billiard, boxing, cycling, football, golf, judo, karate, silat, petanque, sepaktakraw, shooting, table tennis, tennis, volleyball, weightlifting and wushu.

Malaysia are not sending athletes for soft tennis, wrestling, muay thai and shuttlecock juggling.

For the record, Malaysia sent 734 athletes to the 2007 Korat SEA Games in Thailand, 403 to the 2005 Manila Games in the Philippines, 349 to Vietnam (2003), and fielded 569 athletes when Kuala Lumpur hosted the games in 2001.

Kok Chi said the final list of athletes would be known after a Chef-de-Mission meeting in Vientiane on Oct 26 for all participating countries, including Timor Leste.

Meanwhile, the Laos SEA Games website today said more than 4,200 athletes from 10 Asean countries are expected to participate in the games that offers 398 gold medals in 25 sports.

SEA Games Technical committee vice chairman, Kasem Inthara said Laos as the host, would be fielding the biggest contingent, comprising 661 athletes, followed by Thailand (637) and Vietnam (600).

"The final number of athletes from each nation will be announced on Oct 26," said Inthara who confirmed that except for Timor Leste, the rest - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos had already submitted the list of athletes, by numbers.

He said although the countries had sent the numbers to the committee, the confirmed final number and their names would only be known at the end of the month.

-- BERNAMA