THAILAND has accused Malaysia of skewing the Sea Games in favour of sports where the host nation has an advantage.

The revamping of the sporting programme at each edition of the games means that Malaysia is dominating the medal table at the 29^th Sea Games.

The host nation is leading with 93 gold, 62 silver and 60 bronze. Vietnam, which is in second spot, has 51 gold. Thailand is third with 50 gold.

The Thais, who topped the medal tally at the 2015 Sea Games in Singapore with 95 gold, are targeting 109 gold medals at the Kuala Lumpur games.

“We have missed several gold medals and our situation does not look good,” Thailand’s delegation chief Thana Chaiprasit was quoted as saying yesterday by the Bangkok Post.

“I think we will get around 80 gold medals which would be about 20% below our target of 109 golds.”

Thana took aim at the host nation, saying “They organise sports they are good at and do not organise sports other countries are good at”.

Among the sports at KL2017 are squash, ice hockey and figure skating while women’s boxing was dropped at Thailand’s expense. – August 27, 2017.