IT WAS the stage that launched the careers of the region’s sporting greats – from Malaysia’s sprint king and four-time Asian Games champion Mani Jegathesan to Indonesian badminton legend Susi Susanti, the first South-east Asian to win an Olympic gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Yet the biennial sporting meet – the brainchild of former Thailand Olympic Committee vice-president Luang Sukhum Nayaoradit – was a much humbler affair when founding members Thailand, Burma (now Myanmar), Malaya (Malaysia), Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia agreed to stage the first South-east Asian Peninsular (Seap) Games in 1959.
Over 700 athletes and officials gathered in Bangkok for six days and competed in 12 sports (athletics, aquatics, badminton, basketball, boxing, cycling, football, shooting, table tennis, tennis, volleyball and weightlifting).
School teacher Tan Eng Yoon etched his name into the history books as Singapore’s first gold medallist when he won the 400m hurdles.
It was the greatest event of his life, Tan, who died in 2010, told The Straits Times years later.
While the Games was created to enhance regional cooperation, its future was threatened briefly by politics and the emergence of the short-lived Indonesia-backed Games of the New Emerging Forces (Ganefo).
This led to the 1963 Games being cancelled before the Games was restarted with the 1965 edition in Kuala Lumpur. By 1977, the Seap Federation included Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The competition was renamed the South-east Asian (SEA) Games and took the number of nations to 10 with only East Timor absent – the island nation joined from the 2003 edition onwards.
As the Games grew in scale, so has the standard of competitors involved, mirroring the rise of Asean.
At the 1983 Games here, Singapore swimmer Junie Sng became the first Asian woman to break the nine-minute barrier for the 800m while bowlers Henry Tan, Ronnie Ng and S.Y. Loh broke the world record in the trios with 3,620 pinfalls.
New Asian standards were also reached in shooting (Vietnam’s Dang Thi Dong rewrote the Asian record in the women’s standard rifle prone competition at the 1991 Manila Games) and athletics (Philippine sprinter Lydia de Vega set a new benchmark in the women’s 200m in 1993).
Moreover, the Games has also served as a springboard onto greater success for many athletes.
Weightlifter Tan Howe Liang was a gold medallist at the first Seap Games in 1959 and a year later, he became Singapore’s first Olympic medallist in Rome.
Thai featherweight boxer Somluck Kamsing built on his victory at the 1995 Chiangmai Games, telling a television reporter years later that he believed it was his destiny to become Thailand’s first Olympic champion.
He did so at the 1996 Atlanta Games, defeating Bulgarian world champion Serafim Todorov in the final.
Weightlifter Tan Howe Liang was a gold medallist at the first Seap Games in 1959 and a year later, he became Singapore’s first Olympic medallist in Rome.
Thai featherweight boxer Somluck Kamsing built on his victory at the 1995 Chiangmai Games, telling a television reporter years later that he believed it was his destiny to become Thailand’s first Olympic champion.
He did so at the 1996 Atlanta Games, defeating Bulgarian world champion Serafim Todorov in the final.
Indonesia’s dominance on the badminton court from the late 1970s – they won 50 SEA Games golds between 1977 and 1997 – culminated in a golden haul at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona where they won five medals, including gold in the men and women’s singles.
This June 5-16 Games will welcome more than 7,000 athletes and officials. Among them will be some of sport’s elite performers including badminton icon Lee Chong Wei, Asian Games long jump champion Maria Natalia Londa from Indonesia, Malaysian diver and bronze medallist at the 2012 London Olympics Pandelela Rinong as well as local stars such as Commonwealth Games silver medallist swimmer Joseph Schooling and world No. 4 table tennis player Feng Tianwei.
Most of the sports offered are on the Olympic programme but in keeping with the rich cultural diversity of the region, several niche events like pencak silat, sepak takraw and dragon boating also feature heavily.
While it has been called “The Friendship Games”, age-old rivalries among nations and a chance to secure bragging rights ensures the Games remains fiercely contested.
This competitiveness has in fact led to one of the long-standing criticism of it as host countries, given discretion to pick some sports and keen to increase their own medal haul, have taken advantage of this power to select events that favour them.
This has led to the sometimes one-off inclusion of non-mainstream sports like paragliding, shuttlecock-kicking and fin swimming.
Thailand, who has hosted the Games a record six times from 27 Seap and SEA Games, are the most successful nation with 1,992 golds, ahead of Indonesia (1,669) and Malaysia (1,041).
A total of 402 gold medals from 36 sports will be offered at the latest instalment.
And as it has in the past, the 28th Games will offer a stage for medals to be won, records to be set and stars to be born.
