Cambodian Athletes Maintained the National Honor and Strengthen Solidarity in the IO M Families

(Phnom Penh): H.E. Dr. Senior Minister Thong Khon, President of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC), said that despite not winning medals, Cambodian athletes have maintained and promoted the national honor by participating and strengthening solidarity and friendship with athletes of participating countries, in particular, adhere to the rules and regulations of the Games, which are the common spirit of the International Olympic Movement.

This emphasis was made by H.E. Dr. Senior Minister accompanied by H.E. Vath Chamroeun, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and Secretary General of the NOCC, on the return trip of the Cambodia delegation and athletes in the evening of August 14, 2024 after the completion of mission of The 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France from July 26 to August 11.

After completing the above mission, H.E. Dr. Thong Khon praised the French host for organizing the competition of the 33rd Summer Olympics 2024, which is a great sporting event. This event is not just for athletes, another important thing is the reunion of Olympic movement families in all countries, all regions to change experiences between the leaders of the Olympic movement.

In fact, more than a week after the opening ceremony of the above 4-year event, H.E. Dr. Senior Minister with H.E. Vath Chamroeun met with the leaders of the Olympics and many international sports federations to strengthen cooperation towards the development of high-level sports in Cambodia. As like as meetings with the President of the Italy Handball Federation and the International Handball Federation, which aims to help Cambodia to establish a national handball federation and support the development of handball, as well as meetings with the leaders of the National Olympic Committee of Poland, which is a country has a strong Olympic movement, and Poland promised to work hard to help Cambodian sports as well.

For athletes, thousands of athletes meet each other to change experiences and strengthen solidarity and friendship in accordance with the Olympic motto, whether the International Olympic or regional Olympics, how to move from one Olympics to another Olympic must be "higher, faster and Stronger - together” is not faster, higher or stronger alone. In that, Cambodian athletes, even though they did not win medals, but still also respected the spirit of this sport: "Win with Fair-Play and Lose with Honor".

H.E. Dr. Thong Khon continued that: "As of the end of the Olympic Games, among the athletes of 206 Olympics, there are only more than 60 countries have won one or more gold medals, and nearly 20 other countries that did not receive gold medals but received only won silver and bronze medals, more than 100 countries did not win any medals. But more importantly is the participation means the participation of athletes from all countries that are members of the Olympics."

"This participation is very important for Cambodia. We are proud that our Cambodian athletes have participated in this top international sporting event, by preserved the honor and respecting the rules and regulations of the competition. This is the important honor for our country and our athletes and also the historical record for each athlete who participated in the competition without making mistakes and was able to learn techniques as well as regulations from this event”.

Overall, through the Paris Olympic Games 2024, for more than half a month, the delegates and athletes of Cambodia were able to maintain and enhance the honor to the Our Nation, while the France host did two big things which gave the honor to Cambodia: 1- Although the number of athletes of Cambodia is small, the host gave a beautiful boat, separately in the parade, during the opening ceremony. 2- The presence of Cambodia rapper Vanda in the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games is also a great honor given by France to Cambodia as well. H.E. Dr. Senior Minister Thong Khon added.