Copyright (c) 2023 Cambodia Sports Television and Cambodian SEA Games Organizing Committee
Cambodia - a nation situated in the Indochinese Peninsula - came a long way since the days of foreign colonization, wars, disasters, and many of the dark episodes like the genocidal killings carried out by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. All of these may have plagued Cambodia long enough, but the country itself altogether - along with its tradition and cultural practices - continued to recover and rebuild itself while dealing with the legacy of its bitter, yet oppressive days, and it now seeks to open up even more to the world when the nation finally takes its turn to host the Southeast Asian Games for the very first time in its history; staging the event's 32nd iteration, which is held from 5 to 17 May 2023.
Cambodia was among the six founding countries of the Southeast Asian Games Federation (SEAGF), although its delegation was absent from the inaugural edition of the then-named Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games at Bangkok in 1959, never taking part until 1961 in Yangon - where the country's team won 11 medals overall, which included one gold medal. The nation was even timetabled to stage the third SEAP Games in 1963, but internal strife and the then-ongoing political crisis in Cambodia resulted in that opportunity being destroyed, forcing the nation to beg off and cancel that year's Games.
In the years following the restoration of the monarchy, with all parts of society once again able to smoothly function itself, Cambodia began to develop and it then joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1999. The sports sector was not even neglected by the government, nonetheless, in which they formed a national sports federation to provide training and resources for both athletes and officials.
These 2023 Games were a coming-out party for Cambodia, showing to the world how the country had resiliently developed itself while coping with the ghosts of its many darker pasts. Over 6,000 athletes from all of the 11 Southeast Asian countries have participated, and the meet featured 584 medal disciplines in 36 sports.
Vietnam came out on the top of the medal standings with 136 golds and 359 medals overall, clinching not just their third overall championship, but their first in a SEA Games held at foreign soil; this is also the first time that the country had done so back-to-back after topping the tally in 2021 - or rather, 2022 - at their own turf. They were followed by Thailand which placed 2nd, Indonesia at 3rd, and hosts Cambodia at 4th - their best performance in the Games' 64-year history.
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