Unusual Sports Branches At SEA Games 2023

Southeast Asian athletes will compete for the highest appreciation for 36 sports to compete in the 2023 SEA Games in Cambodia from 5-17 May.

Of the many lay sports, there are a number of names that may sound foreign to the public.

Because as before, the country hosting the SEA Games has the privilege of including sports that are considered profitable for them, thus allowing local sports or new discipline to be competed in the biennial sporting event.

Reported by ANTARA, Thursday, May 4, here are a number of unusual sports at the SEA Games:

Arnis

Reported by AFP, the martial arts using a stick from the Philippines was again competed in 2023, after appearing in 2005 and 2019 when their home country hosted the SEA Games.

In Arnis, two athletes wearing protective suits and helmets try to beat each other with sticks made of rattan.

In anyo discipline, individual performers wear traditional clothes to carry out choreography movements with weapons.

Apart from Arnis, Kun Bokator is also the art of national martial arts which is competed this month.

Then there is also Vovinam, an empty-handed martial art from Vietnam which also adopts wrestling movements and other martial arts characteristics such as pencak silat.

Kun Bokator

This martial art is believed to be over 1,000 years old and born during the Khmer kingdom, whose territory covers much of Southeast Asia.

Kun Bokator is probably the most basic martial arts in Cambodia.

Having a elegant style, combining elbow punches, dry bone attacks, locks, and wrestling, Kun Talentor made his debut at the SEA Games just one year after being included in UNESCO's list of Humanitarian Cultural Heritage.

The martial arts is also growing now after being almost extinct in the past decade due to very few Kun Talentor practitioners who survived the Red Khmer regime in the 1970s.

However, this martial art has won the hearts of Cambodians who want to preserve their culture.

Teqball

Teqball is a new sport that combines the style of the game of takraw and table tennis.

According to the Asia Olympic Council website, Teqball was born in Hungary in 2012 and has attracted the attention of new-generation athletes and amateur players around the world.

Teqball is played by two people (single) or four people (doubles) using a special table that is designed to bend over the sand field, acrylic or indoor.

The players are allowed to touch the ball a maximum of three times, using all parts of his body except the arm, before returning it to the opponent.

A number of world football national teams such as Spain and Portugal fill their free time outside of training by playing teqball.

Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho was also appointed as the sports ambassador.

The acrobatic kicks of the teqers, the term teqball players, will be entertaining at the 2023 SEA Games when teqball is competed as a demonstration sport.

Chinlone

In Myanmar,chinlone means round basket. Sports that require teamwork are very popular in their home country.

So famous for the sport, thechinlone festival in Myanmar has been going on for more than a month and has been followed by more than a thousand teams.

Chinlone merupakan keluarga sepak bola dan serupa dengan sepak takraw.

The origin of thechinlone may have something to do with the ancient Chinese game called cuju or tsu telelap, which FIFA recognizes as the oldest form of football in the world.

Chinlone is also related to other sports families played by kicking, known as jianzi in China and jegichagi in Korea.

Because of the privilege ofchinlone, regulations must be made so that the game can become a competition and be competed for the first time at the 2013 SEA Games at Naypyidaw.

In each match, two teams appear in sets for ten minutes each.

In thechinlone, six players stand in a circle-shaped arena trying to keep the ball from falling to the ground with acrobatic touch, sometimes also elegant like a dancer, with their legs, knees or head.

One player standing in the middle of the circle (point zone) tries to keep the ball from falling by executing the specified moves, before forwarding the ball to other players.

Points are given if all six players have succeeded in keeping the ball from falling to the ground.

The team with the most points won the set, and those who won the first two sets came out as champions.