There are 40 sports providing 462 gold medals and 2 presentation occasions– esports and canoe polo– at the 18th Asian Games in Indonesia which formally start on Saturday.
Thailand are sending out 829 professional athletes to participate in all 42 disciplines and goal to bring house 17 gold medals.
The forecast was made by the Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT), which is accountable for preparing the nation’s professional athletes for the Asian Games, after collecting info from nationwide sports associations worried.
At Incheon 2014, Thailand declared 12 golds and ended up 6th total behind China (151 golds), South Korea (79 ), Japan (47 ), Kazakhstan (28) and Iran (21 ).
The Thais declared 4 golds in sepak takraw, 2 in biking, and one each in cruising, golf, taekwondo, bowling, tennis and boxing.
At Jakarta Palembang 2018, Thailand are anticipated to get 4 titles in sepak takraw, 2 each in cruising, canoeing and rowing, and one each in weight-lifting, biking, taekwondo, bowling, boxing, pencak silat and jet snowboarding.
Thailand have actually bagged 22 out of 33 Asian Games gold medals granted in sepak takraw and have actually ended up as the very best country in the Southeast Asian sport in each of the last 5 editions of the continental event.
Sepak takraw is once again viewed as Thailand’s finest wish for golds.
There are 6 occasions in the sport at the 2018 Asian Games however Thailand are enabled to participate in just 4 due to the fact that of their supremacy.
” We need to win all gold medals to protect our track record in sepak takraw,” stated Charouck Arirachakaran, president of the Takraw Association of Thailand.
Mighty lifters
Weight-lifting is Thailand’s most effective sport at the Olympics with 5 gold medals.
Remarkably, the Kingdom have actually won just 2 golds in the sport at the Asian Games– Chaiya Sukchinda in 1966 and Pawina Thongsuk in 2006.
The Thai weight-lifting group have greater opportunities of winning golds in Indonesia with the lack of powerhouses China and Kazakhstan who have actually been prohibited for doping till later on this year.
The Thai team are led by 2016 Olympic champs Sopita Tanasan and Sukanya Srisurat.
Sinphet Kruaithong, who won a bronze in Rio to end up being the nation’s very first male weightlifter to get an Olympic medal, and Thunya Sukcharoen, who caught a gold medal and 2 silvers at the 2017 world champions, might likewise go all the method.
While the Thai Amateur Weight-lifting Association (Tawa) is most likely to end its title dry spell at the Asian Games, its chief advisor Intarat Yobangtoey does not wish to put additional pressure on his professional athletes.
” It holds true that we will have greater opportunities of winning gold medals without professional athletes from China and Kazakhstan,” stated Intarat.
” However it will not be simple due to the fact that there are still a great deal of strong professional athletes from numerous nations like Uzbekistan, Indonesia, North Korea and Taiwan.”
Fighters’ mission
The Thailand Boxing Association (TBA) wishes to get better from a string of frustrating lead to global occasions.
Thailand’s amateur boxing has actually remained in a decrease because the 2012 London Olympics where the nation won just one silver in the sport.
It was the very first time that Thailand stopped working to win an Olympic gold medal in the discipline because 1996 when fighter Somluck Kamsing ended up being the Kingdom’s first-ever Olympic champ.
It was even worse 4 years later on in Rio de Janeiro where Thailand stopped working to win a medal in the boxing ring for the very first time because 1976 when Payao Poontarat ended up being the nation’s first-ever Olympic medallist with a bronze in Montreal.
They likewise had miserable efficiencies at the 2015 and 2017 SEA Games and won just one gold medal at the 2014 Asian Games with Wuttichai Masuk being the sole champ in the 64kg department.
” We need to win a gold medal otherwise we can shelve our prepare for signing up with the winners’ circle once again at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics,” stated TBA technical chief Somchai Poonsawat.
” I keep informing my fighters that ‘you require to win at the Asian Games initially if you wish to win at the Olympics’.”
Taekwondo star ‘Tennis’
The Taekwondo Association of Thailand is pinning its hope on Panipak Wongpattanakit, who has actually won in numerous global competitions consisting of the Youth Olympics, world champions, Asian champions and SEA Games.
Panipak, among the very best fighters worldwide, was dissatisfied when she might just declare bronze at Incheon 2014.
” It was a pity that I might just get bronze in the previous Asian Games,” stated the 21-year-old star who is nicknamed Tennis.
” I now have more experience. I am one hundred percent all set physically and psychologically. I am positive that I will revive a gold medal for all Thais.”
Panipak was a preferred for gold at the 2016 Olympics however needed to go for a bronze.
Coached by Korean Choi Young-Seok, Thailand’s other gold medal competitors in Indonesia consist of Olympic silver medallist Tawin Hanprab and Ramnarong Sawekwiharee.
Teenage hotshot
Thailand won their very first Asian Games golf medals at Incheon 2014, recording one gold in the females’s group, a silver (females’s person) and 2 bronzes (guys’s group and females’s person).
Thailand Golf Association president Rangsrid Luxitanond is targeting a much better efficiency from his gamers in Indonesia.
” I am positive that we will win 2 gold medals in the group occasions,” he stated.
It might be 3 as teenage star Atthaya Thitikul has actually remained in great type because in 2015.
Thailand’s male gamers are Kosuke Hamamoto, Sadom Kaewkanchana, Wanchai Luangnitikul and Wichayanont Chotehiranrungroeng.
The females’s employee are Atthaya, Kan Bunnabodi and Kulthida Pramphun.
All eyes will be on 15-year-old Atthaya, probably the world’s finest female amateur at the minute.
In 2015, at the age of 14 years, 4 months and 19 days, she won the Ladies European Thailand Champion in Pattaya to end up being the youngest ever gamer to win at an expert occasion.
A couple of weeks later on, she caught both the group and specific gold medals at the SEA Games.
The Ratchaburi native took the low amateur honours at 2 significant champions this year– the ANA Motivation in April and Women’s British Open previously this month.
” My self-confidence has actually been improved by my efficiency at the Women’s British Open. I will attempt to assist the group maintain the title however will not put additional pressure on myself,” Atthaya stated.
Thai sepak takraw gamers, in yellow, contend at the 2014 Asian Games. (Pictures by Pattarapong Chatpattarasill)
Taekwondo star Panipak Wongpattanakit, left, in action at the 2014 Asian Games.
Fighter Wuttichai Masuk, left, throughout the Incheon Asian Games.
