Against the Odds: Hem Bunting

The Olympic athletes all live in a dilapidated stadium
[KI-Media: Note the cardboard used as bedding]
Cambodia's best Olympic hope says money - or lack of it - is his main problem

Monday, 21 July 2008
BBC News

"This is a wonderful thing that I can do for my country ... Nobody else can do it - only me" - Cambodian Marathon Olympian Hem Bunting

The lack of finance is a recurring theme in conversation with Cambodia's athletes

The BBC's Against the Odds series is following athletes heading to the Olympics despite huge obstacles.

Guy De Launey meets a Cambodian runner so poor he lives in the crumbling athletics stadium where he trains.

Hem Bunting proudly fishes his medals out of one of a line of narrow, wooden lockers. One is silver, the other is bronze, and they confirm his status as one of the best distance runners in Southeast Asia.

At the SEA Games in Thailand last year, only one man could beat Bunting in the marathon. Just two finished ahead of him in the 5,000m.

Soon he will represent Cambodia at the Olympic marathon in Beijing, one of just four athletes in his country's Olympic team.

Living in stadium

It is amazing that Bunting has come so far.

Hem Bunting
Best time in the marathon is 2:26:28 (World record, 2:04:26)
Aged 22; Weight 56kg; Height 1.67m

As he sits down on his simple wooden bed, with a mosquito net nailed above, he casts his eyes down the room. There are dozens of similar beds with barely enough room to walk between them.

This is where Cambodia's elite athletes live, all together in an improvised dormitory overlooking the swimming pool at Phnom Penh's crumbling Olympic Stadium.

Bunting says the living arrangements leave a lot to be desired.

"Sometimes my team-mates come back late at night when I am trying to get some rest," he complains.

Perhaps it would not be so bad if the morning starts were not so early. The sun has yet to rise when Bunting makes his way down to the dirt track to start his warm-up routine.

Second class citizens

Sometimes he restricts himself to laps around the perimeter.

That, however, is not ideal preparation for a marathon runner - especially as he has to swerve round crowds of early-morning exercisers shuffling round the track.

"There are too many people around," says Bunting. "I'm always having to slow down and swerve around them."

The elite athletes say they are often treated as second-class citizens by staff at the stadium.

On one recent morning they arrived to find the gates locked, and they were told they would have to train somewhere else.

The coaches were just as outraged as their charges - and, grim-faced, continued their track drills after everyone had squeezed through a gap in the perimeter fence.

No money for shoes

Bunting and his training partner Cheng Chandara mutter that it all boils down to cash.

If athletics were a rich sport, they reckon, they would not be facing these problems.

The lack of finance, however, is a recurring theme in any conversation with Cambodia's best Olympic hope.

He receives an allowance of less than $50 a month which leaves him hard-pressed to cover his basic living expenses.

A pair of running shoes costs around double that amount, and with no corporate sponsorship Bunting finds it tough to buy the equipment he needs.

The average Cambodian earns $380 per year, so Hem's relatives can only provide moral support - and even then, from a distance.

Traffic-choked streets

Bunting is one of nine children from a farming family in the remote province of Stung Treng, where sports officials spotted his talent at a provincial event and brought him to the capital.

Now he pounds the traffic-choked streets around Phnom Penh in the run-up to the Olympics.

With no large, green spaces in the city, putting the miles in means sucking up red dust and exhaust fumes from the lorries and SUV's which thunder past, and dodging the motorbikes driving the wrong way up the gutter.

At least it means that, unlike some famous marathon runners, Bunting has no concerns about pollution levels in Beijing.

With the Games just over the horizon, government officials and business people alike have started to wake up to the plight of the Olympian in their midst.

Several have pledged three-figure sums to Bunting to help with his equipment costs.

And despite all the hardship, Bunting is proud to be representing Cambodia.

"This is a wonderful thing that I can do for my country," he smiles. "Nobody else can do it - only me."