PATTAYA, Thailand, Sept 8 Reuters - Athletes from cash-strapped Cambodia will have to endure a 10-hour bus journey to reach next year’s Southeast Asian Games in Thailand while team officials will fly to the event.
The team bus will have to negotiate the country’s notorious pothole-ridden roads to reach the host city of Nakhon Ratchasima in Thailand, a measure aimed at saving money on air tickets, a Cambodian Olympic Committee member said today.
Prime Minister Hun Sen accused members of the country’s Olympic committee on Tuesday of being freeloaders and has vowed to divert funds raised for the sports body to the Red Cross.
We will send our team by bus, it will save us money,'' Meas Sarin said. It’s only a 10-hour journey, it’s not that far, but our officials will fly there.’’
Cambodia, which failed to win any gold medals at last year’s SEA Games in Manila, has decided to skip its turn at hosting the event in 2011 to save enough money to hold a regional summit.
The country is one of Asia’s poorest, with a third of its 14 million people living off less than $1 a day.
thats ridiculous!
I think the thread should be titled Cambodian freeloaders not Thai freeloaders. In poverty stricken countries, corrupted and explotative officials would be the norm and I wouldn’t be surprised at the demise suffered by the poor athletes.
OOPS mea culpa, you’re absolutely right. CAMBODIAN Freeloaders is what i should have written, trouble is you can edit the body of the text but for some reasons not up in the header.