Prime Minister Hun Sen is to open the inaugural National Games at the Olympic Stadium today. The ceremony officially starts at 3:30pm, when participants, athletes and officials will gather at the Olympic Stadium, and well-known Cambodian entertainers will start performing from 4:30pm.

Hun Sen is scheduled to arrive at 5:30pm to open the main ceremony, where a Cambodian sporting anthem will be sung, while soldiers displaying the Cambodian and Olympic flags will parachute into the stadium, before martial art demonstrations from the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and l’bokator practitioners as well as artistic performances by teams from the Physical Education and Sport Institution and Ministry of Culture and Fine Art.

A procession of sporting delegates will be followed by the national anthem and speeches from NOCC president Thong Khon and the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports, Hang Chuon Naron, before the prime minister speaks.

A firework display will be followed by the torch procession. Hun Sen will hand the Games torch on to an array of past and present Cambodian sports stars before the lighting of the Games flame.

Vath Chamroeun, secretary-general of the NOCC, said yesterday: “The opening ceremony has been carefully and seriously organised, and today we did the final rehearsal. Because it is the National Games, we have to make sure we have the highest standards. We have trained hard the last three days.”

Translated by In Sopheng