Indonesia, hosts Cambodia in Pool A and Thailand, Vietnam in Pool B through to semifinals of the men’s volleyball competition in Southeast Asia’s biennial multi-sports event.
Bangkok, Thailand, May 6, 2023 – It’s all just history repeating itself when Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, all semifinalists at the previous edition in Vietnam two years ago, powered their ways to the highly-anticipated semifinals of the 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games Men’s Volleyball Tournament at the Olympic Complex Indoor Main Hall in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Volleyball has been a regular medal sport since its inception in the 1977 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with an exception in 1999 in Brunei. Powerhouses Indonesia have already captured 20 medals including 11 gold and 7 silver in the biennial sports extravaganza, while Thailand collected 8 gold, 5 silver and 5 bronze medals and Myanmar claimed 11 medals including 3 gold, 4 silver and 4 bronze medals.
In the previous episode two years ago in Quang Ninh, Indonesia stunned hosts Vietnam and their cheering home fans in straight sets in the final showdown to reign supreme for two times in a row and 11 titles overall, while World No.64 Thailand, a formidable team which have never missed Top-3 finish in the SEA Games history since 1985, left the competition hall with heads low in great despair following their stunning upset 2-3 loss to Cambodia in the third-place playoff clash.
The 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia saw strong teams from 8 countries strut their stuff to chase their dreams of making the podium. Defending and consecutive two-time champions Indonesia, hosts Cambodia, Singapore and Philippines are in Pool A, with Pool B featuring Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Myanmar.
According to the competition format, teams competed in the pool round-robin preliminaries, with only top two teams from each pool through to the cross semifinals. Teams finishing 3rd and 4th places from both pools were relegated to classification round for 5th-8th places in the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia.
Indonesia came back much strong to defend their title and looked very strong offensively with the likes of star spiker Rivan Nurmulki, who landed the Best Scorer Award in the 2023 Indonesian Men’s Proliga. Also strengthening the fired-up outfits included middle blocker Hendra Kurniawan, setter Dio Zulfikri and Farhan Halim, three of them taking the respective Best Blocker, Best Setter and Best Server Awards at the…
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