The 2002 Asian games took place at Busan, South Korea over the first eight days of October. Once more, billiards was a featured cue-sport with matches contested as best of three 100-up games.
Mike Russell's ten day stint of coaching for the Thailand billiards team seemed to pay dividends as Rom Surin (playing under his alternative identity of Praput Chaithanasakun) and Mongkol Kanfaklang took the gold medal in the pairs, soon followed by a gold in the singles for Praput. Kanfaklang, (also know as Tik Korat) is seventy years old, and with this victory became the oldest competitor to win an Asian Games Gold Medal. He was taught billiards by his father when he was nineteen and says that he continues the tradition by teaching youngsters "for at least eight hours a day" at his local snooker club in Thailand. It was there that he met his current wife, 19 year-old Chanchira.
The doubles event had seen Praput and Mongkol defeat the formidable pairing of Geet Sethi an Alok Kumar 2-1 in the final. The Myanmar (Burma) team of Kyaw Oo U and Aung San Oo U took the bronze medal.
This was to be a deeply disappointing Games for the strong Indian cuesports team. They ran into trouble before they even left the country when a selection committee member complained of favouritism in the process. Local newspapers subsequently being filled with the allegations. Although there was no doubt about the selection of Geet Sethi, it seemed there was some uncertainty about the event in which he should play. As the entries were announced it was noticed that Sethi was entered for the Pool event rather than Billiards!
Embarrassment was temporarily avoided as high level meetings resulted in the entry belatedly being switched. However, Sethi then incredibly crashed out in the semi-finals to previously unknown Kyaw Oo U from Myanmar. Showing wonderful composure in the deciding game, Kyaw contrived a cannon from Sethi's break and took the match with 104 unfinished!
However, he could not reproduce his giant-killing performance in the final, going down to Praprut 2-0 in the final. Sethi had the consolation of a bronze medal, winning the play-off against Aung San Oo U, also of Myanmar, by the same margin.
Geet Sethi (Ind) 2 Udon Khaimuk (Thailand) 1 Oo Kyaw U (Myanmar) 2 Loon Hong Moh (Mal) 0 Praput Chaithanasakun (Thai) 2 Hee Hwa Sim (Mal) 0 Aung San Oo U (Myan) 2 Devendra Joshi (Ind) 0
Kyaw Oo U 2 Geet Sethi 1 Praput Chaithanasakun 2 Aung San Oo U 0
Geet Sethi 2 Aung San Oo U 0
Praput Chaithanasakun 2 Kyaw Oo U 0
Sethi/Kumar (Ind) 2 Thanh Long Nguyen/Trung Kien Nguyen (Viet) 0 Kyaw/Aung (Myan) 2 Henry Boteju/Khobala Sirisoma (Sri) 1 Yousef/Khalil (Pak) 2 Seng-Chil Park/Wan-Su Lee (Kor) 0 Praput/Kanfaklang (Thai) 2 Loon Hong Moh/Chee Hwa Sim (Mal) 0
Sethi/Kumar (Ind) 2 Kyaw/Aung (Myan) 1 Praput/Kanfaklang (Thai) 2 Yousef/Khalil (Pak) 0
Kyaw/Aung San (Myan) 2 Khahil/Yousef (Pak) 0
Praput/Kanfalklang (Thai) 2 Sethi/Kumar (Ind) 1