PHILIPPINE Olympic Committee (POC) President Rep. Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino hailed the addition of four more sports on the Vietnam 31st Southeast Asian Games program, three of which are beneficial to the country’s bid to remain as the biennial event’s overall champion.
Vietnam announced the inclusion of jiujitsu, eSports, triathlon and bowling, hiking to 40 sports that are calendared for the November 21 to December 2 games that will primarily be hosted by Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh for the second time after 2003.
“This is good news for us because we dominated three of these four sports when we hosted the games in December 2019,” Tolentino said.
Filipino athletes topped jiujitsu with five gold medals and eSports with three, while it swept all three events in triathlon in the 30th SEA Games.
Tolentino said he will keep lobbying for baseball/softball, soft tennis, duathlon, windsurfing and wakeboarding/water skiing, sports which the country also ruled in 2019.
Vietnam newspaper VNExpress International reported that the SEA Games Federation Executive Committee approved the four sports’ inclusion in a recent online meeting and will make a formal announcement in November.
Vietnam said triathlon is a developing sport with many international races being held in the region. The hosts plan to hold the sport in the northern Quang Ninh province.
The same media outlet said Dota 2, Arena of Valor and Pro Evolution Soccer will be three of the six eSports events to be played at the games.
The addition of the four sports increases the total number at next year’s games to 40, 16 less than last year, with Vietnam blaming this on the economic downturn due to the Covid pandemic.
The 31st SEA Games are scheduled to be held from November 21 to December 2, and the Para Games from December 14 to 21.
Vietnam once hosted the SEA Games before in 2003.
Last year it finished second in the medals tally with 288 medals, including 98 golds.
The sports in the November 21 to December 2 Vietnam 31st SEA Games are: aquatics (diving and swimming), archery, athletics, badminton, basketball (5×5 and 3×3), billiards, bodybuilding, bowling, boxing, canoeing, chess, cycling (road and mtb), dancesports, eSports, fencing and football (football, beach soccer and futsal).
Also in the program are golf, gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic and aerobic), handball, judo, jiujitsu, karate, kickboxing, kurash, muay thai, pencak silat, petanque, rowing, sepaktakraw, shooting, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball (beach and indoor), vivinam, weightlifting, wrestling and wushu.