Chhay Sathya: This Medal Is a Priceless Memory, Not for Sale
Chhay Sathay—bitting the medal—with his friends. Photo: Chhay Sathya
- By Kim Makara
- June 19, 2023 9:00 AM
PHNOM PENH – Chhay Sathya is a high school student who had a silver medal thrown at him by a Thai football player after the final match between the Thai and Indonesian teams during the 32nd Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games). And he has no intention of parting with it.
After losing to Indonesia in the final match on May 16 and ending up with a silver instead of a gold medal, Thai team player Jonathan Khemdee threw his medal along with the SEA Games mascot to the audience in Zone A (VIP), where Sathya caught it.
Since then, Sathya has posted on his Facebook account what had happened, and kept the medal with him.
A 12th grade student at the Hun Sen Bun Rany Phsar Doeum Thkov High School in Phnom Penh, Sathya said during an interview that this medal will remind him of this special sport event in a way that no other souvenir could.
Already, some business people—most of them Cambodian—have tried to buy the medal from him, he said. But he has refused. And he also refused to say who had made the offers or how much they had offered him. All Sathya said is that they would have liked to display the medal in their resorts or restaurants.
For Sathya, this medal is not only a memory of a very special event, but also the memory of a moment in the history of Cambodia that is now part of the country’s identity.
“Cambodia had waited 64 years to host the SEA Games,” he said. “Therefore, I don’t want to sell it. I want to keep it, so that my family and relatives can see and recall this historic sport event.”
Originally written in Khmer for ThmeyThmey, this story was translated by Meng Seavmey for Cambodianess.
