With their dreams shattered to pieces, the Thai swimming and boxing officials are promising to rebuild stronger squads for the future from the debris of the 2015 SEA Games.
They are now going for drastic changes after their spectacular failures in Singapore.
Both teams, who expected to win at least five gold medals each from the biennial Games, fell well short of their respective targets.
The boxing contingent could manage only two gold medals, while swimming had to be content with just one.
The two sports associations, who had added seven gold medals each to the Thai tally at the 2013 Games in Myanmar, vowed to implement changes to get ready for the future challenges.
“We have disappointed the Thai fans and we will have to live with that,” said Somyot Julasen, the technical chief of the Thailand Boxing Association.
He blamed some judging errors for the poor showing but at the same time credited the opponents for good preparations.
Somyot said a number of his boxers failed to produce their best, forcing the association officials to look for better replacements ahead of coming events.
“Based on our current form, it will be an uphill task for us to earn places at the Olympic Games,” he said, adding that to have three boxers qualify for Rio 2016 would be a great achievement.
“Apart from the technical side, the association itself must establish itself as a power on the international stage. With that, our boxers would not be taken advantage of.”
Before leaving for Singapore, Somyot expressed confidence that his team would grab at least six gold medals and after looking at the list of boxers at Games he started fancying as many as eight titles.
However, his target turned unattainable even before the finals started as only five boxers entered the gold medal contests.
His next challenge will be at the Asian Championships to be held in Bangkok from Aug 26 to Sept 5.
One of the major problems facing Somyot is to find a replacement for Apichet Saensit, who will be out for at least six months after being injured in Singapore. “It is a big problem because we do not have many good fighters in the 69kg class,” he said.
Apichet was the bronze medallist at the last year’s Asian Games in South Korea.
Meanwhile, swimming coach Sakchai Suriyawong admitted that both Singapore and Vietnam had made a faster progress than the Thais in the last few years because they trained abroad with world-class coaches.
At the 2013 Games in Myanmar, Singapore dominated the pool with 11 gold medals while Vietnam won five gold medals. This year, Singapore and Vietnam took 23 gold and 10 gold medals, respectively.
“Their swimmers were better prepared by training abroad for a long time,” said Sakchai, whose pupils had a preparatory stint in China for one month only.
“We could not follow their suit because of shortage of funds. However, we will discuss more on the ways of train our athletes.”
Before the Games, the Thailand Swimming Association hoped to win five gold medals. With Nuttapong Ketin sidelined after testing positive for a banned substance, the target was reduced to only three and the team eventually brought home only one from Radomyos Matjiur in the men’s 200m breaststroke.