absolutelyBangkok archive · Sports & Fun
Originally published Aug. 6, 2008
You may have spent half of your life in Thailand. But chances are you know none of Thailand’s leading sportswomen and sportsmen.
51 hopeful Thais compete in Beijing. Among some 10,500 athletes. Whereof 100 are really famous. None of them is a Thai.
You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to count the Olympic medals Thailand has won so far. But who could ever forget Wijan Ponlid ’s gold in 2000? If a Thai wins, it’s ecstatic.
Thailand’s athletes in Beijing didn’t practice award ceremony yet. But then again, at the Sydney Games in 2000 the kingdom won its first-ever female gold in weightlifting. In Athens two more golds followed.
Beijing? Who knows.
You have the chance to cheer for 51 Thai athletes at the Beijing Games. Eight boxers, four (female) weightlifters, three competing in taekwondo, four in badminton.
The rest qualified for athletics, heptathlon, women’s high jump, women’s javelin, swimming fencing, table tennis, cycling, windsurfing — and tennis.
Thai star Tamarine Tanasugarn makes her fourth straight Olympics. She originally failed to qualify, but was granted a special invitation after other players pulled out. And who knows? After her sending Jankovic packing at Wimbledon?
All the hopes are with the women’s weightlifters, whose names you better start memorizing. For instance Prapawadee Charoenrattanatharakul. Or Jaroenrattanatarakoon?
The weightlifters are ready to rock — thanks for the shot Xpress:
The 24-year-old Prapawadee, top left, from Nakhon Sawan has her eyes even set on world records.
A Thai medal could be lucrative. A Thai Olympic gold medallist is assured of at least 13 million baht in bonus from the government and the private sector. The government alone promises one million baht, as Hannah Beech reports in TIME.
But having learned from the past the money would be doled out over a 20-year period, lest athletes blow their cash too quickly.
Lots of cash and glory waiting, but most will return as average Olympians flying economy class and squeezing again training between work or school.
You never know. Remember Wijan Ponlid?
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