Tokyo, Japan, August 3, 2021: Cambodia’s top sprinter Pen Sokong will stay in Japan to prepare for the next two Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, the Cambodia SEA Games 2023 organising committee CAMSOC has announced.
The Olympic Scholarship athlete competed in the men’s 100 metres at the Tokyo Olympics on July 31 and finished sixth of nine athletes in his heat with a season’s best time of 11.02 seconds.
He will now stay in Japan for eight months and continue to train for the next SEA Games in Vietnam, which were due to be held this November but have been postponed to next spring on dates to be fixed.
The 27-year-old sprinter is also banking on this experience to help him succeed at the 32nd SEA Games in his home country Cambodia in 2023.
The training will be funded by an athletics club in Kanagawa prefecture, starting from August 1 through to March 2022 in time for the 31st SEA Games.
CAMSOC said the arrangement highlighted the determination of Cambodian athletes to improve their level of performance on the international stage, particularly in relation to the SEA Games challenges in the next two years.
At the 30th SEA Games in the Philippines in 2019, Pen ran 10.87 seconds at New Clark City and was aiming to break this mark in Tokyo.