Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Sepak Takraw

As I mentioned in a post from March, we get more than 120 TV channels with our cable TV package, quite a few of those being sports networks.

Unfortunately, American college football is unavailable. The nearest we get to football is rugby, which I suppose is very popular in Australia. Occasionally, I can watch American Major League Baseball. Basketball seems to be the most popular sport on TV here, but I actually prefer volleyball.

In was in that post from March that I mentioned seeing televised camel racing. In that post, I was wondering how the the promoters could be certain that the camels would continue to run around the track without a jockey guiding them and pushing them in the right direction. A friend living in U.A.E. told me that the camel were chasing something mechanical much like greyhounds do when they're racing.

Channel surfing last night, I came upon another sport that was new to me - Sepak takraw. Basically, the game is volleyball played with one's feet. In the game, the players use a rattan ball and are only allowed to use their feet, knee, chest and head to touch the ball.

I came upon a match between Vietnam and Thailand. The jpg is a shot of the TV. Just to give an idea how the game is played, I videoed a minute or so of the game. It isn't the highest quality video, but it gets the point across.

For those interested, Thailand, in red, won the match in all three sets.

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