BURMA/MYANMAR WINS 2 GOLDS AT GUANGZHOU 16TH ASIAN GAMES
Kyaemon
Xinhua: Myanmar wraps two golds in Asiad Sepaktakraw The Official Website of the 16th Asian Games
http://www.gz2010.cn/10/1127/14/6MGK18900078007F.html
In Women’s Double final, Kyu Kyu Thin and Phyu Phyu Than outplayed the the Chinese team Sun Xiaodan and Wang Xiaohua 2-1 to win the gold medal.
Losing the opener 15-21, the Chinese were so close to their first Asiad Sepaktakraw gold medal by winning the second set 21-14, but they lost the decider 16-17.
China has also won one silver in Women’s Team and two bronze medals in Men’s Regu and Women’s Regu.
Thailand showed its dominance of the sports by wrapping four of the six gold medals at Guangzhou.
Sepaktakraw, or “kicking woven ball”, is played primarily in Thailand and Malaysia. It is like Volleyball, but with a no-hands rule. The sport made the debut at the Beijing Games in 1990 and the Women’s competition was added at Bangkok in 1998.
Flash: Myanmar wins gold medal in Men’s Double Sepaktakraw
Updated:2010-11-27 10:14:59 Source: GAGOC
Guangzhou, November 27 – Myanmar won Men’s Double gold in Sepaktakraw, beating Korea 2-0 at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou on November 27. Indonesia and Japan placed a joint third.
Flash: Myanmar wins gold in Women’s Double of Sepaktakraw
Updated:2010-11-27 12:10:28 Source: GAGOC
Guangzhou, November 27 – Myanmar won the gold medal in Women’s Double of Sepaktakraw, beating China 2-1 at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou on November 27. Japan and Korea placed a joint third.
http://www.gz2010.cn/10/1127/12/6MGCP5D50078007F.html
Myanmar wins 2 golds on last day
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Sport/Story/STIStory_607975.html
GUANGZHOU – IT TOOK until the final day of competition for Myanmar to win its first gold medal these Asian Games. The country formerly known as Burma added a second less than two hours later.
Myanmar won both doubles sepak takraw gold medals on Saturday.
Si Thu Lin and Zaw Zaw Aung – helped by spiker Zaw Lat in the second set – won 2-0 against South Korea in the men’s final, then Kyu Kyu Thin and May Zin Phyoe overcame China’s Sun Xiaodan and Cui Yonghui 2-1 in a grueling 1 1/2-hour women’s doubles final.
Only a point separated the teams in the women’s event with Myanmar winning 21-15, 14-21 and 17-16.
And elbow injury to Lee Gyu Nam at 17-17 in the second set cost South Korea badly in the men’s final when he landed heavily while going for an acrobatic spike before losing 21-18, 21-18.
He opted to continue but the South Korean pair could save only one match point before losing the gold medal match. Saturday’s performance was Myanmar’s best ever in sepak takraw at the Asian Games. They won their first and only previous gold in 1998 at Bangkok in the women’s Regu. — AP
Myanmar wins first gold but silenced on politics | Reuters
http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-53184420101127
Myanmar wins first gold but silenced on politics
(Reuters) – Myanmar won its first two gold medals at the Asian Games in the popular southeast Asian sport of sepaktakraw on Saturday, though the excitement proved too great for a team official who fainted and was hospitalised.
The golds came on the final day of competition at the Asian Games for the resource-rich country which has been ruled by a military-backed government for nearly 50 years.
“We’re very much pleased, honoured and very happy,” said Myanmar men’s doubles captain Si Thu Lin, who led his team to a 2-0 win over South Korea in the skillful sport that involves shuttling a rattan ball over a net with the feet, head and chest.
For the tiny, but vocal band of Myanmar supporters who waved flags and cheered every point, there was more joy to come, when the Myanmar women’s doubles team clinched a second gold in a nail-biting contest against a resurgent China duo.
After a tie breaker that saw both sides go neck and neck in desperate, fighting rallies, Myanmar finally nicked it 17-16 with Burma’s team leader, Nyan Htun, taken away on a stretcher by emergency medical personnel and rushed to hospital.
“He was shocked … and just collapsed,” Myanmar’s head coach Kyaw Zin Moe told Reuters as medics checked his vital signs.
His latest condition wasn’t immediately clear.
The double sporting victory for Myanmar comes at a politically sensitive time for the nation just weeks after it held an election widely condemned as rigged to prolong military power behind a facade of democracy.
The Asian Games kicked off on November 12, just a day before Burmese democracy icon and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was released after seven years of house arrest.
Myanmar’s players and officials, who wrapped themselves in the nation’s new flag and paraded around the court basking in the glory, steadfastly avoided talking politics.
At a post match news conference when the matter of Suu Kyi’s release was raised, the players chuckled politely and an Asian Games official cut off the coach in mid-sentence. “Only questions related to the match may be directed,” said the official.
Afterwards, Moe, the Burmese coach said the team were in Guangzhou when Suu Kyi was freed and he didn’t know the latest.
“We’re not interested. Sport and politics are very different. If you want to be a good player you just have to concentrate on sports, not business, not politics and not social welfare.”
Some fans, however, spoke hopefully of the 65-year-old, considered a symbol of the struggle against dictatorship in one of the world’s most oppressive countries.
“I think it’s important to have peace,” said Dedee, a 22-year-old Burmese software engineering student.
“We don’t understand this political stuff, but after her release we hope she can contribute something to our country, not just fight the government but have dialogue with it.”