Vietnam-hosted Asian Beach Games faces disinterest from teams, spectators

Sports of the ongoing 2016 Asian Beach Games Da Nang City, located in central Vietnam, are being played with a few to no spectators watching, while athletes and teams also show little interest in the Games.

It has been three days since Da Nang kicked off the 5^th season of the Asian Beach Games (ABG5) on Saturday, the event still receives lukewarm attention from local and tourist spectators despite being open to the public.

Apart from a few sports competed by Vietnamese teams such as Muay Thai, beach soccer, and beach handball that are spectated by a large audience in the late afternoons, most other sports at the ABG5, including beach volleyball and athletics, are being played with a few or even no spectators at all.

One reason for the lack of interest could be the organizers’ failure to run communication campaigns to attract public attention to the event.

Along the beaches of My Khe, Son Thuy, Phuong Trang, and Bien Dong Park, where the Games’ 14 sports are played, no signs or promotion banners with information on the venues and times of the ABG5 matches could be seen.

Nguyen Van Cu, a local near My Khe Beach, said he had seen people erecting tents along the beach every afternoon when he took a dip into the ocean, but “had no clue what sports were going to be played there.”

“The organizers should have put up a sign on the sidewalk near the beach entrance with information on which sports are going to be played in the area and at what time. Sometimes spectators didn’t even know the rules, or even the names, of the sports they were watching,” Cu said.

Meanwhile, some sports at the ABG5 are being given the cold shoulder even by the participating teams, such as in the case of athletics.

Despite significant media attention for the sport, only a total of 200 athletes from ten teams, out of 41 teams, signed up for14 athletic events at the ABG5.

Instead of running along the beach, as the name of the Games suggests, athletes were made to run on an abandoned piece of land nearby, the soil of which had been mixed with sand to form a running track.

In response to questions about why running events were not held on the beach, head of the ABG5 athletic event organizing committee Hoang Manh Cuong said the sand there was too soft and penetrable for the sports.

Cuong added that all venues for the sports had been approved by the technical subcommittee of the Asian Athletics Association prior to the commencement of the ABG5.

According to a member of the ABG5 organizing committee, the actual number of participating athletes at the Games is far lower than previously published estimates by the organizers.

Only 2,195 athletes from 41 teams are officially taking part in the 14 sports of the ABG5, compared to pre-Games estimates by the organizers of 3,000 to 4,000 athletes.

The number is not final, however, as four participating teams already withdrew from the ABG5 right before the opening ceremony.

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