The closing ceremony of the 28th Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) was held at Singapore’s National Stadium on Sunday, 11 days after the sporting extravaganza began.
Burma finished seventh in the medal tally with 69 in total: 12 gold, 26 silver and 31 bronze. The golds were taken in activities including canoeing, billiards, judo and sepak takraw.
Ministry of Sports Director Htay Aung said, “Our teams aimed high and tried their best, but we only won two out of the ten projected medals in canoeing. Apparently the team had some difficulties with their boat. We didn’t manage to meet expectations in other sports either, and in the end we had to settle with just 12 golds. We can only assess what went wrong when the teams come back.”
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More than 500 athletes from Burma competed in 31 out of 36 sports at this year’s games, competing against athletes from 11 ASEAN countries.
Thailand emerged as the final leader on the medal tally with 95 gold medals in all, followed by host Singapore with 84 and Vietnam with 73.
In March, Kyaw San Oo, the director of the Sports Ministry’s Training and Competition Department, had said that Burma was aiming for a fifth-place ranking and 50 gold medals.
Burma hosted the last SEA Games, bagging a total of 86 gold medals and coming second place in the tally.
The 29th SEA Games are set to take place in Malaysia in 2017.
