Despite won 23 medals, which were more than expected, at the recent Southeast Asian Hapkido Championship in Indonesia, Mr. Kong Chanthina, Secretary General of the Cambodian Hapkido Federation, said that the team needs to strengthen its experience, especially in the international competitions, as this is only the second time after the first overseas competition, the 2024 World Championship in Thailand.
The Secretary General elaborated: "We need to strengthen our participation in competitions and overall assessment we have only competed internationally for the second time, so we don't understand much about the conditions and techniques, so we need to strengthen their spirit. A few players are still worried, not confident, not as good as during practice, when they feel more full spirit. When competing internationally, seeing a lot of people affects their feelings and their performance."
Related to the Southeast Asian Championship, Mr. Kong Chanthina said that, the team did well in some disciplines, but some others were not as good. He emphasized that this time the competition has less time to prepare and adapt to the disciplines less than before. In fact, in this Southeast Asian Championship, the host is the one to determine the disciplines, as the participating teams cannot choose themselves and perform freely like in the World Championship. However, the Secretary General of the Federation is still happy with this achievement because it exceeds expectations and before participating, the Federation has expected only 10 medals or less.
For the comparison of the results, he said that only the hosts Indonesia and Thailand are better than the Cambodian team, and other than that, they are not superior to each other.
The 23 medals from the 2025 Southeast Asian Hapkido Championship in Indonesia that the Cambodian team won are 4 gold medals, 7 silver medals, and 12 bronze medals.