Anyone for Kabaddi?

The Second Asian Indoor Games
Offer Spectators Some Offbeat Sports

By STEVE MOLLMAN
October 19, 2007

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

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

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

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.