"I think that money is appropriate, not a lot, because the Olympic committee has a lot of work to do," 18-year-old Olympic swimmer Hem Thon Ponloeu was quoted as saying.
Meas Sarin, secretary general of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC), said that NOCC recently gave every athlete a one-time 400 U.S. dollars bonus, and Tourism Minister and NOCC President Thong Khon earlier also personally donated 200 U.S. dollars for each of the six Cambodian athletes and trainers heading for the Beijing Olympics.
In addition, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is paying the Cambodian delegation's travel expenses to Beijing, he added.
Each Olympic candidate used to receive only 30 U.S. dollars of stipend every month from NOCC, which they have complained is too few to meet the usual demand.
Cambodia will send a 15-member delegation to take part in the Beijing Games. King Norodom Sihamoni and Education Minister Kol Pheng are also planning to attend the opening ceremony.
It is not the first time Cambodia has sent athletes to the Olympics. The first post-war delegation of five Khmers competed at the Atlanta Games in 1996, and Cambodia subsequently sent four athletes to both Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004.
| Editor: An Lu |
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