PHNOM PENH: Former volleyball player Kong Thean Vutha, who relayed the 1966 Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO) torch from Angkor Wat, expressed his pleasure at holding the 2023 SEA Games torch during the relay from Banteay Meanchey to Siem Reap on May 3, 2023.

Speaking with EAC News by telephone, he said, "I’m so happy to hold the torch for the second time."

Understandably tired, 74-year-old Kong made his statement and then passed the phone to his wife, Chiv Luy who said she was excited and happy to see her husband holding the torch again. She said, "He was standing in front of the house when he remembered that he once carried the torch for the GANEFO Games. He said that if he could hold it again, he would be unimaginably happy. Coincidentally in the governor of Banteay Meanchey province invited him to participate in the relay.”

Chiv Luy said that Kong Thean Vutha was a 16-year-old volleyball player when he joined in the GANEFO torch relay at Angkor Wat in 1966. She went on to thank the Royal Government of Cambodia for hosting the 2023 SEA Games and ASEAN Para Games and for giving her husband the opportunity to hold the torch again. "I wish the Prime Minister and the country a long and healthy life,” she said.