Cambodia fail this time around

The WOVD Volleyball World Cup came to a conclusion yesterday and after looking odds on for a place in the final, Cambodia dropped to 4th place in the six-team standings after they came a cropper against Poland in the 3rd place play-off. It all went wrong for Cambodia against Germany in the last of their preliminary games, when they lost and never regained the momentum they'd established in their earlier matches, and it showed in their semi-final against Slovakia and yesterday's 3rd place match-up. Poland won 3-0 yesterday to claim the bronze medal, while as expected, Germany stormed through Slovakia to claim the World Cup itself, in the final that followed. I didn't go to the games yesterday after watching Cambodia, a shadow of their former selves, lose to Slovakia the night before, with the writing already on the wall. Coach Christian Zepp must take some of the blame for cutting his ponytail off - didn't he read the stories of Samson? Seriously, Cambodia will be gutted with their later performances in the competition and dropping down to 4th in the rankings after their heroics of 2007, after all the hype promoted by Chris Minko and his PR team.

Semi-final nerves

Tonight will see Cambodia in the semi-final of the WOVD Volleyball world cup with a 6pm start time for their match against Slovakia, who they defeated for the first-time earlier in the week. It's at the Olympic Stadium and a full house is almost guaranteed, as Cambodia are seeking to reach the world cup final for the disabled for the 1st time. The other semi is between the red hot favourites Germany and Poland. Tomorrow, Saturday, will see the final begin at 6pm, and fingers crossed Cambodia will be in it. First they have to defeat a very strong Slovakian team and their cry-baby captain. If you can't make it in person, CTN will be covering the match live.
Update
It didn't work out for Cambodia as they'd hoped. Slovakia came good in the semi-final again, as they did two years ago, and beat Cambodia 3-1, so its the bronze medal that the Cambodian team will be seeking tomorrow, not the gold medal afterall. The crowd turned out in force but the Slovaks came out blazing and never really let Cambodia get into their rhythm, and its they who will meet Germany in tomorrow's final, after they just sneaked past Poland. All the flag waving, drum beating and horn puffing (by Sorn Elit, the SEA Games medalist, back in Phnom Penh and giving his full support to the volleyball team) couldn't pull Cambodia through on this occasion.

Action from tonight's semi-final which Cambodia lost to Slovakia

Reputation at stake

I stuck my neck out early this morning on international radio to say that Vietnam would beat Thailand in their gold medal haul from the SEA Games in Laos. Last night both countries were neck and neck in their gold medal collection with 61 golds apiece and today is the last full day of competition, with quite a few finals to be competed for. When I say I stuck my neck out, no-one really cares whether I'm right or not but I did put my reputation (do I have a reputation?) on the line for the Radio Australia listeners just before 8am this morning and I'm sure the breakfast news team will be ramming it down my throat if I'm wrong. In a nice way of course. There's a big push by Vietnam to knock Thailand off their SEA Games pedestal this time around, and the Thais are feeling the pressure. Their football team succumbed early on and Vietnam are almost guaranteed to collect the football gold in today's final against Malaysia. Though Thailand have won more medals in total, it's the golds that determine the table standings and it couldn't be any closer going into the final stretch. Great to see Laos collect 25 gold medals this time around, they picked up just five in 2007. The Games have certainly raised their athletes' performances to an all-time high. And congrats to the Cambodian team too. As it stands, we have 34 medals in total, including 3 golds, and that's a massive increase on our 2007 medal tally, despite far fewer individual competitions. Kudos to Radio Australia for giving the SEA Games some wider international recognition too. I've heard today from my pal Phalla that the Vietnamese are flooding even more people into Vientiane for the football final this afternoon. There's not a seat to be had on the flights coming from Saigon and Hanoi and the roads into Laos are packed with cars festooned in Vietnam flags and colours. There simply won't be enough seats in the stadium to accommodate the fanatical Vietnamese supporters.
On the disabled volleyball front, Cambodia have won their 3rd consecutive game, beating India with ease in the WOVD World Cup, after their first-ever win over Slovakia the night before. The Cambodian team, who are hell bent on winning the trophy for the 1st time, play twice today, meeting the favourites Germany at 6pm tonight at the Olympic Stadium, as well as Malaysia at 1.30pm. Oh, and the Slovakian captain who is probably the biggest cry-baby in world sport is Josef Mihlaco, who was yellow-carded in the match against Cambodia for his incessant whining and poor sportsmanship. I remember that he was exactly the same the last time the World Cup was held in Phnom Penh.

Disabled prowess

Spike action from tonight's game with Cambodia in dark blue and their coach, Christian Zepp, standing in red

With the buzz of the SEA Games still ringing in my ears and the knowledge that Cambodia have easily beaten their 2007 medals tally already, with 26 at the last count this evening, I went to watch my first match of the WOVD Volleyball World Cup. And I definitely chose the right matchup. Cambodia versus Slovakia is probably the toughest match that will be played by all the six teams competing in this world cup competition. I remember the games between the two teams in 2007 and I specifically remember the bad sportmanship showed by the Slovakia No 1 and captain. His non-stop moaning and whining (and his quality blocking and volleying) was a feature then and it looks like he hasn't learnt his lesson now, as he was at it again. Cambodia ran out 3-2 set winners in a very close preliminary round encounter and that set the crowd alight, with clapping, cheering and drum-bashing throughout the match. Most enjoyable and I hope to get along to a few more Cambodia games leading up to Saturday's final. They've already beaten Poland and still have to face Germany, Malaysia and India to identify who the the semi-finalists will be on Friday.

The support tonight was excellent and even this Malaysian player got caught up in the mood with the Cambodin flag

The Cambodian team and support staff celebrate their success over Slovakia