Cambodian athletes
attend the opening ceremony of the Southeast Asian Games in Singapore last year.
AFP
Olympic body seeks athletes abroad
Tue, 17 May 2016 ppp
Erin Handley
Cambodia's Olympic body has called on the Foreign Ministry to recruit athletes
from the Cambodian diaspora to represent the Kingdom at elite international
sporting competitions.
The announcement from Vath Chamroeun, general
secretary of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC), came on the
heels of a visit from
Cambodian-born US diver Jordan Pisey Windle – whom Chamroeun said had expressed
interest in competing for the Kingdom.
“This is good for
Cambodian athletes, who will make more effort to train
. . . it will push us to correct our training conditions and cover our mistakes
or weak points in sport,” Chamroeun said, adding the Olympics was a competition between athletes, not
nations.
Although tracking down foreigners of
Cambodian descent with sporting prowess – honed
through their training overseas – was not against the Olympic rules, Jean-Loup
Chappelet, a professor at Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration specialising in
Olympic Games organisation, said the practice is “usually less overt”.
“It raises the question of autonomy of the
National Olympic Committee vis à vis the government,” he said in an email.
John McGlynn, head of Phnom Penh’s Football
Future Pro coaching academy, said while recruiting Olympians could spark
interest and inject funding, there was still a gaping need to focus on grassroots development for young athletes at home.
“In the short term, it could be quite positive
. . . but if there are going to be lasting results down the track, something
needs to be put in place by the government,” he said.
“From a national level, you want to have a
youth system in place where you can produce your own talent.”
Chappelet said many European nations and Gulf
States recruit Olympians from elsewhere, which results in the dual benefit of
enhanced medal chances for the nations and a chance to compete for athletes who
would not make the cut in their country of residence – though, he added, it
could also result in “muscle drain”.
“It is still necessary to regulate the ‘muscle
drain’ because there might be some illegal or immoral human rights infringements
and human trafficking behind these practices,” he said.
