The Khmer440 Games

To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the Association of South East Asian Nations a year of superlative events have been planned by the ten member states, perhaps the most auspicious alternative sporting event in history is being held in Cambodia. Join K440 Sports Team as we take you on a blow-by-blow account out the first week at the ASEAG!

The South China Sea Yacht Race

Widely touted to be the region’s version of the America’s Cup, and with as much drama as the Sydney-Hobart race, the inaugural Klang South China Sea Yacht Race certainly had its fair share of thrills.

A flotilla of vessels departed from Sihanoukville harbor and battled the elements along the coast of Vietnam before rounding the Spratley Islands and Scarborough Shoal. Ships which survived the firepower of the Chinese navy will battle it out along the western shores of The Philipines, before entering the Mekong Delta and then finish line at Sokha Hotel, Phnom Penh.

Results:

1. Thailand – A strong showing by the Thai sea gypsies aboard ‘Runnybumporn’ put the Land of Smiles on the podium. A clever mix of seamanship and non-committal politics saw them round the Spratley’s and sprint back to the finish line.
2. Philippines – The combination of local knowledge and promise of a billion dollar aid package saw Captain Gabriel Marcos-Del Pintoy snatch second place with the ship the Jesus-Maria Duteurte IV.
3. Singapore – Although the sand dredging vessel Golden Lion II was the slowest of the fleet, she expertly fended off a volley of small arms fire put across her bows from an unmarked military installation close to the eastern Paracel islands to claim bronze.
4. Indonesia
5. Malaysia

Unfinished:

Laos – As a landlocked country, not much was expected of the Laotians, who got seasick looking at Otres beach and refused to venture out past their knees.

Vietnam – A detour to raise the yellow star flag on an isolated sandbar close to Woody Island led to disaster, as the hull of the Uncle Ho struck, and detonated a submerged marine mine.

Myanmar – A brave group of ethnic Rohingas were volunteered onboard a leaky wooden canoe by the Burmese military as representitives of the newly democratic nation. Sadly she was sunk by a 2 foot wave off Rabbit Island, with all hands lost.

Brunei – The Sultan’s own gold plated schooner failed to leave port, the crew suspected to be trapped inside Queenco.

Cambodia – The crew of Lexi-S’art got into a violent confrontation with Vietnamese squid fishermen off the coast of Kampot, seriously damaging their vessel. The offer of work by a passing Thai trawler was accepted and the men were never seen again.

Competitive Sleeping 

One of the most hotly anticipated disciplines of the entire games, Competitive Sleeping was not without high drama and controversy. As slumbering athletes snoozed through the knock-out stages – napping in hammocks in front of a Khmer wedding – the final five in both the men’s and women’s event were identical – Laos, Myanmar, The Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia.

For the showdown, held at O’Russey market, competitors were given a tough test – sleeping on parked Honda Dream motorcycles whilst judges played the sounds of barking dogs, power tools, screaming babies and a full 10-piece pop covers band rocking out over a 50kw sound-system. After each was finally roused from an REM state the medal board looked like this:

Men’s                                                                                                Women’s

1. Kip Avahsnoosahkip – Laos*                                      1. Lahyzee Bich – Laos
2. Shu Tey – Cambodia (1)                                              2. Snao Rinkunthea – Cambodia
3. Dropawee Havadreamsabit – Thailand (2)            3. Attanijht Aidreamaboutbum–  Thailand
4. Dang So Slee-Py – Myanmar (3)

*Disqualified

However, a random drugs test stripped Kip Avahsnoosia of his gold, after he was found to have traces of crystal meth in his urine, a disappointing outcome as he was out for the count for a personal best of 14h 32m. The drugs cheat was escorted away for reeducation by the competent authorities, even though 5^th placed Filipino sleeper Sensasion De Sueno offered to shoot him and dump the body in Kampot Bay. The shock of such behavior at such a professional level of the game ultimately pushed Cambodia into gold, with Thailand and Myanmar taking silver and bronze.

Formula Tuk-Tuk

Petrol heads were especially looking forward to the throttle-to-the-mottle action promised by a specially designed course which took speeding touters of cheap(ish) public transport from the Toul Kork Skybridge, along Monivong, Russian Blvd and around the old BK lake at speeds of up to 15kmh.

It was really all about Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Phillipines and Brunei in the end, after Myanmar’s machine couldn’t start due to lingering sanctions on spare parts, Laos PDR’s Team Kolao motorcycle pulled out with engine problems after 100m, Team HondaWin of Vietnam were set upon by an angry mob of CNRP supporters after stopping and asking for directions, and Cambodia’s Daelim Racing driver pulled over to wave his hands and shout ‘Tuk-tuk sir?’ at the spectators for the rest of the afternoon.

The 5 remaining moto-rickshaws powered around the course, but none were a match for Brunei with its custom built Royal Remorque, belonging to the Sultan himself, driven by a custom Ferrari Enzo engine, and Malaysia’s PETRONAS Power mobile. In the end Brunei took the chequered flag and the gold.

1. Team Super-Sultan – Brunei
2. Team PETRONAS-Power- Malaysia
3. Team Salaamitsubushi- Indonesia
4. Team Pattaya-Flyer- Thailand
5. Team Jesus-Jeepney – The Philippines
6. Team Enviro-Green – Singapore

The Shit River 100m Freestyle

The rules of this race event are simple. Wearing nothing but regulation shorts and water-wings, competitors must leap into the black depths of Phnom Penh’s famous open sewer and swim/float from the starting point at St432 to Mao Tse Tung bridge. After leaving the water all competitors give a blood test which is dispatched posthaste to Pasteur Institute who run a lab analysis. The swimmer with the most water borne diseases, viruses, pathogens and parasites is declared the winner.

The posthumous winner of 1^st place and the gold medal went to sterile city state Singapore’s Ai Dai Sun, who collected an impressive list of ailments, including:

• Polio
• Malaria
• Cholera
• Weil’s Disease
• Scabies
• Typhoid
• Anaemia
• Botulism
• Fluorosis
• Trachoma
• Hepatitis A, B & C
• Diarrhea
• Giardiasis
• Ascariasis
• Trichuriasis
• Legionellosis
• Leptospirosis
• Schistomiasis
• Dracunculiasis
• Onchocerciasis
• Lead poisoning
• Cryptosporiodiosis
• Campylobacteriosis
• Lymphatic filariasis
• Hookworm infection
• Ring Worm
• Methaemoglobinemia
• Cyanobacterial toxins
• Japanese encephalitis
• Chlamydia

Ai Dai Sun’s body is currently being held at Soviet Friendship hospital, waiting for family to perform the traditional rites.

Bizarrely, former Boueng Kak lake fisherman Dy Aria and Filipino Jose ‘The Manila Swimmer’ Penicillin both came out of the fetid depths healthier than when they entered. Scientists believe a mixture of natural tolerance and high levels of over-prescribed antibiotics in local’s piss may be behind the phenomena.

1^st Ai Dai Sun – Singapore (RIP) 31

2^nd Mustapha Kwikshaat – Brunei 22

3^rd Ngyuin Dadung – Vietnam 19

Religious Devotion

With a mixture of faiths in the ASEAN bloc, this competition was split into 4 main denominative group stages, with the winner of each going to face off in the final.

Group 1: Buddhism: Myanmar/Thailand/Cambodia

Group 2: Christianity: Philippines/Singapore (chosen grouping)

Group 3: Islam: Malaysia/Brunei/Indonesia

Group 4: Marxo-Leninism: Laos/Vietnam

The Group 1 three-way got underway with a serious chanting of the dharma, followed by a disappointing meditation session for the Cambodian monk, Prey Simor, who broke his silence to answer his iPhone. The ordained abbot from Myanmar, Htway Aung -Obak, then began to complain about a hijab-wearing Cambodian Cham spectator in the stands and threatened her with a length of bamboo, before being ejected by Daun Penh security guards. Thailand won the round by default, although not without scandal as the venerable Chaow Onnapeesomeet was caught on leaked CCTV images selling tiger fetuses to a Chinese businessman outside Dim Sum Emperors.

Group 2 was more of a one horse race, as the Singaporean Kum By Ar tried his best to preach the gospel and sing uptempo hymns with the aid of his guitar, but he was no match for devout Catholic Inddefonso Hittler. The plucky father of four from Quezon was nailed to a 4 metre high cross by his sons and remained there, reciting the Lord ’s Prayer, for 78 hours.

The Imams representing the 3 Islamic nations faced off by quoting the Qur’an from memory. The contender from Brunei, Iqbar Leremembur, stumbled over ‘juz 16, Qāla ʾa-lam, hizb 31, sura 18:9 and bowed out of the competition in shame. Malaysia and Indonesia got down to the final sura of ‘amma after 32 non-stop hours and preceded to debate the finer points of Sunni Islam, when a freak gust of dusty Phnom Penh wind blew the taqiyah off the Malaysian contester’s head. Conceded as the will of Allah, it was the Indonesian Amin Dertaliban Al-Haji who made it to the final.

The Commie factions, Laos and Vietnam, had another one-sided competition, decided by a debate on the motion ‘Can the revolution be sustained through a semi-free market economy?’

Ngyeun Stalin, a rising star in the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (Hanoi), began with a rousing speech, which sent the Laotian Priddi Appitheticol into a drowse. On awakening, the leader of Lao’s People’s Revolutionary Youth Union began to quote Mao Tse Tung, when he was handed a slip of paper by a mysterious man in dark glasses. The young Laotian bowed, muttered something about class struggle forever uniting the brotherhood between Lao PDR and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and shuffled off stage.

The final between Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam was won by Inddefonso Hittler, who stayed up on his cross until his son managed to buy a claw hammer from Home Top. The Thai monk’s magical tattoo making skills earned him the silver medal and, even though the crowd was less than impressed by Dertaliban Al-Haji’s hadith on Islam being a religion of peace, honest, the fact that absolutely nobody is interested in the proletariat rising up to shake off the shackles of bourgeois oppression any longer, gave the Indonesian bronze over the Vietnamese.

With week 1 of the games now finished the second week is promising to be just as action packed, with hotly anticipated final heats of Long Distance Sitting, the Black Panther Angkor Wat Selfie Half-Marathon, Chicken Chasing, Competitive Karaoke and the hotly awaited ASEAN Police Forces Bribathon.

The medal tally to date:

Country                        Gold                                  Silver                                  Bronze

Brunei                                  1                                             1
Cambodia                            1                                             1
Indonesia                                                                                                                          1
Laos                                      1
Malaysia
Myanmar                                                                                                                          1
Philippines                         1
Thailand                                                                              2                                            1
Singapore                           1
Vietnam                                                                                                                             1