Movie @ Futsal...Gol!!!
Movie clip @ Malaysian Cycle Ball Team
Malaysian Dance Sports at the Quarter Final.
In action, Johathan Fam and Tan Hsueh Ling at the Five Latin Dances Quarter Final Events.
The Malaysia team started its debut in the 2AIG Indoor Hockey events men category Saturday against Macau.
The first match of the Malaysian team ended with a four goals draw, against Macau. The score board was launched four minutes into the first half by Kali Kavandam Keevan Raj and Leong Lap Man scored back 10 minutes after.
Malaysia in action. Goal!!!
Movie clip @ Malaysia Flag raising ceremony.
CDM at the Malaysia flag raising ceremony.
Speech by CDM at the flag raising ceremony.
The flag raising ceremony.
Jalur Gemilang raising at the Macau2007 2nd Indoor Games.
Malaysia Contingent at the Flag Raising Ceremony.
Gulf Daily News - Manama,Bahrain
... bin Rashid Al Khalifa will head today for Macau to attend the flag-hoisting ceremony at the second Asian Indoor Games which gets underway on Saturday. ...
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Nepali Team Off to Macau for Asian Indoor Games
Himalayan Times - Kathmandu,Nepal
A Nepali team on Tuesday left for Macau to participate in the second Asian Indoor Games to be held in Macau from October 26 to November 4. ...
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Pakistani contingent leaves for Indoor Asian Games
The Post - Lahore,Punjab,Pakistan
AP of Pakistan ISLAMABAD: A 28-strong contingent of Pakistan left for Macau on Tuesday morning to participate in the 2nd Indoor Asian Games being held there ...
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Star-studded contingent for Asian Indoor Games
Udayavani - Bangalore,India
New Delhi, October 23: A 186-strong Indian contingent, including 116 athletes, will take part in the second Asian Indoor Games to be held in Macau, China, ...
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148-member Indian team for Asian Indoor Games
Hindu - Chennai,India
NEW DELHI: India will field a 148-member contingent in the second Asian Indoor Games to be held in Macau from October 26 to November 3. ...
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KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 (Bernama) -- With a number of first-choice players on the crock list, national Futsal coach P. Balakrishnan is forced to rely on a mixed squad for the 2nd Asian Indoor Games in Macau from Thursday to Nov 3.
a Yusof and Zaidi Zulkifli, among others.NATIONAL back-up squad bowler Trish Khoo will be on a double mission when she competes in the 2nd Asian Indoor Games starting on Friday in Macau.
| Written by G.Ganbayar | |
| Thursday, October 18, 2007. | |
| THE 2nd Asian Indoor Games will be organized in Macao for nine days beginning on October 26. According to the organizing committee (MAIGOC), 3,575 athletes from 45 countries have already sent in their entries. |
KUALA LUMPUR: Young rising star Zatil Iman Abdul Ghani will be out to consolidate her place in the SEA Games bowling squad when she swings into action in the 2nd Asian Indoor Games, which will be held in Macau from Oct 26-Nov 3.
The 19-year-old Zatil, who bagged her first senior international title at the Singapore Open last month, is one of the bowlers in the eight-member team down for the Indoor Games.
Based on her current form, back-up bowler Zatil is one of the frontrunners for the six-member women’s team for the SEA Games bowling competition in Bangkok.
The others in the team for Macau are Trish Khoo, Nornahizah Abu Bakar, Sin Li Jane, Mohd Zaid Izlan Ibrahim Hakimi, Syahereza Fajrin Abdul Manan, Lim Chin Lung and Mohd Nur Aiman.
Yesterday, Games chef-de-mission Datuk Roy Rajasingham said the Asian Indoor Games would be a platform for some of Malaysia’s athletes to prepare for the SEA Games.
“Some of the top athletes are involved in bowling, hockey and futsal. I am confident that the Macau Games will provide them with stiff competition,” said Rajasingham, who is also the Olympic Council of Malaysia’s (OCM) vice-president.
Malaysia will be competing in nine out of the 16 sports in Macau. The sports are bowling, chess, xiangqi (Chinese chess), dancesport, dragon and lion dance, extreme sports, futsal, cycling, hockey and kabbadi.
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Zatil |
“I regret that we are not represented in athletics. These Games are a springboard for athletes to earn places to compete in other regional and international tournaments,” he said.
On the projected medal target in Macau, Rajasingham said: “We have a conservative goal of winning at least five gold and three silver medals.”
At the inaugural Indoor Games, Malaysia took part in only two sports and returned home with one gold medal through Ahmad Fadzil Musa in skateboarding.
The athletes are funded by their respective national sports associations. Incentives are not given but the OCM will consider if there are outstanding results.
Faced with tough competition from Japan, can the Latin ballroom dancers of India cha cha cha their way to a gold medal? Will China claim the regional lion dancing crown against Malaysia's highly rated movers and shakers? And can the bleary-eyed videogamers of Mongolia notch up a rare sporting victory for their nation?
These and many other burning questions will be answered at the Second Asian Indoor Games, held in Macau from Oct. 26 to Nov. 3. The dancers and gamers will be joined there by Thai kick boxers, Sri Lankan kabaddi players, Indonesian hoop takraw aces and hundreds more patriotism-fueled athletes from 40-plus nations striving for medals in more than 20 sports.
The aim of the biennial event, according to the Olympic Council of Asia, is to "promote the Olympic ideal to Asian people" and "arouse their enthusiasm in sports that are good for mental and physical health."
That's all well and good, but for spectators the event serves another purpose: With so many mainstream sports excluded from the games, where else can you see so many quirky sports in one place? As well as only including sports that are played indoors, the council decided the event should have no overlap with the Olympics. So even events that sound familiar are often composed of obscure subcategories: In the pool, for example, we have fin-swimming (racing with flippers on), while on the cycle track there's artistic cycling (gymnastics on a bike) and cycle ball (soccer on a bike).
Next to those, events such as bowling and indoor field hockey may feel a little pedestrian. Other sports on show, running the gamut from the everyday to the exotic, include aerobic gymnastics, BMX freestyle, muay thai (Thai boxing), sports climbing, kurash (Uzbek wrestling), cue sports (yes, that does mean snooker and pool) and futsal (indoor soccer).
Here are a few of the highlights; full details are at www.maigoc2007.com1.
Lion Dancing
![[Lion dance photo]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/AW-AE241_Indoor_20071018153859.jpg) |
| A group performs a lion dance during a competition in Indonesia. |
With its weighty props, colorful costumes and traditionally dressed musicians, lion dancing is an elaborate affair. It's also a dangerous one: The two athletes hiding beneath the front and back of the large lion costume dance precariously along a series of slender poles of varying heights while the rest of their troupe plays traditional music. A misstep can mean a broken leg or worse. Each routine tells a different story, with the dancers striving to create the illusion of an agile four-legged cat being curious, playful, scared and excited. Judges rate routines by technique, difficulty and coordination with the music.
The sport originates from China, but Malaysia's decorated Kun Seng Keng troupe is confident it can win gold. That's thanks partly to lion dancing's popularity in Malaysia, not just among ethnic Chinese but also the rest of the country's population, says the troupe's secretary Ang Kuan Yau.
Kabaddi
![[kabaddi4]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/AW-AE242_Indoor_20071018153902.jpg) |
| Kabaddi teams from India and Pakistan compete for gold at the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar last year. |
Kabaddi is less elaborate than lion dancing; for starters, there's not a single piece of equipment. Two seven-player teams face each other from different halves of a 12.5-by-10-meter court. A "raider" from one side enters the other and tries to touch opponents and then jump back over to his side without getting captured (there's only a men's competition in the games). If he is captured -- as in grabbed, held and immobilized by opposing players -- the other team scores a point and he's out. But if he touches any opponents and makes it back to his side, then his team scores, and the tagged opponents are out. To make things interesting, the raider cannot inhale while on the other side -- and to prove it, he must continually chant the word "kabaddi," which comes from the Hindi term meaning "to hold one's breath."
The game is more violent than it sounds, with tackles getting vicious at times. Speed, strength, good reflexes and strategic thinking are all required, says E. Prasad Rao, technical director of the Asian Amateur Kabaddi Federation. Powerful lungs and endurance help, too, as the game lasts 40 minutes with only a five-minute break in the middle.
India, where the game originated, is a strong contender for the gold, but Japan, Iran, Bangladesh and Pakistan also all have talented squads.
Hoop Takraw
Almost as if the Southeast Asian sport of sepak takraw (kick volleyball) is too popular, the Asian Indoor Games has instead turned to its lesser-known cousin, hoop takraw. It's a team sport, but there is no interaction between opposing teams. Five players stand in a circle beneath a triangular hoop with a pyramid-shaped net on top of it, 4.75 meters (for men) or 4.5 meters (for women) overhead. Each side of the net contains a tiny hole, and the objective is to kick, knee, head or shoulder the ball into one of the holes as often as possible within 30 minutes.
As in kick volleyball, Thailand is the team to fear; the coaches of its men's team say they are 90% confident of winning gold. The Thais' biggest rivals are from Myanmar, where a traditional sport called chinlone parlays smoothly into hoop takraw.
Dance Sport
![[Dance Sport]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/AW-AE239_Indoor_20071018153144.jpg) |
| Priti Gupta, left, and Shannon Benjamin, who will represent India in the dance sport competition at the Asian Indoor Games. |
This competition is broken into two categories, standard and Latin, each including five styles; for standard, they are waltz, Viennese waltz, tango, slow foxtrot and quickstep; for Latin, samba, cha cha cha, rumba, pasodoble and jive. A handful of couples dance at the same time in front of the judges, who rate their routines.
Indian competitor Shannon Benjamin says the Japanese, who receive both top-notch international training and extensive government support, are the ones to watch. But with more than 30 million dance-sport enthusiasts, expect a strong showing from China, too.
E-Sports
New to this year's event is the e-sports category, in which contestants will duke it out in popular sports-related videogames such as the soccer title FIFA 07. Videogames join chess and xiangqi, a Chinese board game, among the less strenuous competitions at the games. But "athletes in (these) sports have to apply a lot of techniques and mental abilities to win," says Eric Chau, director for cultural events and communication for the Macao Second Asian Indoor Games Organizing Committee. The titles selected all promote Olympic ideals because, argues the committee, they're all related to real-world sports (soccer, basketball and motorsport).
The finals will be held on a stage with a handful of computers, and spectators will be able to watch the action on a big screen. The Mongolian team, which came away empty-handed from the first Indoor Games in Thailand two years ago, expects to win some medals in this category. Tsogt Sharavrentsen, a manager with Mongolia's national e-sports program, points to his star athlete, 19-year-old Lkhagvasuren Byambasuren, who forged his FIFA 07 skills in the Internet cafes of Ulaanbaatar. But the Chinese, in particular, notes Mr. Sharavrentsen, are formidable competitors.
--Steve Mollman is an Asia-based writer.
The total of 24 teams seeing action in the 2nd Asian Indoor Games scheduled 26th October to 3rd November 2007 in Macau. Chess tournament shall be in Standard, Rapid and Blitz Chess. For each category there will be mixed team competitions and individual competitions for both men and women with 9 gold medals at stake. The Team Competitions in Rapid and Classical Chess shall be held as a Swiss system of six rounds. Read report with attractive photos
Schedule for chess event :
| Date | Time | Event | Gender | Phase |
| Oct. 25 | 20:00 | Technical Meeting |
|
|
| Oct. 26 | 09:00-17:00 | Rapid Chess Team | Mixed | Rds. 1 -4 |
| Oct. 27 | 10:00-12:30 | Rapid Chess Team | Mixed | Rds. 5-6 |
| 15:30-18:00 | Rapid Chess Individual | M W | Semis 1 & 2 | |
| 18:30-21:00 | Rapid Chess Individual | M W | Final Games | |
| Oct. 28 | 09:00-20:00 | Classical Chess Team | Mixed | Rds 1 & 2 |
| Oct. 29 | 09:00-20:00 | Classical Chess Team | Mixed | Rds 3 & 4 |
| Oct. 30 | 09:00-20:00 | Classical Chess Team | Mixed | Rds 5 & 6 |
| Oct. 31 | 09:00-20:00 | Classical Chess Individual | M W | Semis 1 & 2 |
| Nov. 1 | 09:00-20:00 | Classical Chess Individual | M W | Finals 1 & 2 |
| Nov. 2 | 09:00-13:00 | Blitz Chess Individual | M W | Rds. 1-9 |
| 16:00-18:00 | Blitz Chess Individual | M W | Semis & Final | |
| Nov. 3 | 09:00-13:00 | Blitz Chess Team | Mixed | Rds. 1-9 |
Time controls for chess event would be 90 minutes for whole game with increment of 30 seconds per move in Standard chess; 25 minutes with increment of 10 seconds per move in Rapid chess; and 3 minutes with increment of 2 seconds per move in blitz chess. The blitz chess team and individual (M & W) shall be 9-round Swiss system events. From the team event, the best two scores on each board shall qualify for the individual event provided they must have played all six rounds.
Asian Chess Federation President Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifah Al Nahyan has designated Mr. Ignatius Leong as Technical Delegate.
