Former Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat tumbled out of the men's badminton singles at the Southeast Asian Games Friday as Indonesia took their 100th gold to extend their medals table lead. Hidayat, who won the men's singles at the 2004 Olympics, ended a miserable week with a second capitulation at this year's Games to Thai youngster Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk with a 14-21,19-21 loss.
Hosts Indonesia were on 119 golds late Friday, taking a seemingly unassailable lead over Vietnam in second who had amassed 70 golds with four days of competition to go. A sweep of golds in the wall climbing, pencak silat, roller skating and vovinam - all making their Games debut - as well as a strong showing in the athletics have seen the hosts surge ahead of their regional rivals.
And their wrestlers also played their part on Thursday securing four golds to make light of pre-competition funding problems that forced the team to buy their own training mats. There was however bitter disappointment for the host's under-23 football team, who lost 0-1 to arch-rivals Malaysia in the final group game Thursday, ending an unbeaten streak that has galvanised their massive support.
Their coach struck a defiant note after the disappointment of losing to the defending champions in front of a packed Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta. Apologising to the home fans Rahmad Darmawan called the loss a "wake-up call" that will spur his side on in their semi-final clash against top-scoring Vietnam on Saturday. "I had to rotate players because there's only one day of rest before the semi-finals. I'm sorry to the fans because the team played below expectations, but we will play better against Vietnam," he told the Jakarta Globe newspaper.
Medals table Medals table at the 26th Southeast Asian Games on Friday.
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Gold Silver Bronze Total
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Indonesia 122 90 83 295
Vietnam 71 67 68 206
Thailand 68 64 76 208
Malaysia 40 40 54 134
Singapore 32 38 61 131
Philippines 20 34 50 104
Laos 7 5 24 36
Myanmar 4 15 24 43
Cambodia 3 10 15 28
Brunei 0 1 7 8
East Timor 0 0 1 1
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