Wild Boars headed to Argentina for Olympic visit

Members of the Moo Paa Academy team, their parents and staff coach attend a religious ceremony for the boys and late former Navy Seal member Samarn Gunan at Wat Phra That Doi Wao in Mae Sai district in Chiang Rai on Sunday. (Photo by Chinnapat Chaimol)

CHIANG RAI: The 12 young players and their coach from the Moo Paa Academy football team in Mae Sai will leave Thailand on Oct 3 for Buenos Aires, Argentina, to attend the opening of the 2018 Summer Olympic Youth Games at the invitation of International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.

Accompanied by a team of Thai officials, they will stay three days at an Olympic village for athletes.

The games will be held between Oct 6-18 in Buenos Aires.

On Oct 9, the Wild Boars and their coach Ekapol Chanthawong will proceed to the United States. They will appear for interviews on NBC's Today Show and Late Night programmes in New York on Oct 11 and 12.

They will also appear for a media conference at the Thai consulate in New York before returning to Thailand on Oct 20.

The news on their scheduled overseas trip came after the 12 players of the Moo Paa Academy football team and Coach Ekapol on Sunday attended a religious ceremony at Wat Phra That Doi Wao in tambon Wiang Phang Kham in Mae Sai. The ceremony was dedicated to Sqd Ldr Saman Gunan, a former Seal member who died in the operation to rescue them from the Tham Luang cave in Chiang Rai's Mae Sai district in June.

The ceremony was also attended by Mrs Waleeporn, wife of the late Sqd Ldr Saman.

The 12 Wild Boars and their coach were trapped by rising floodwaters in the Tham Luang cave on June 23. They were extracted from deep inside the cave complex in an international rescue operation that captured worldwide attention. The last members of the team were brought out of the cave on July 10.