Skip to main content

Shabery makes an impression in first visit to the NSC

KUALA LUMPUR: First impression, they say, always matters.

And the country’s new Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek certainly showed himself as a down-to-earth and hands-on Minister after his first official visit to the National Sports Council (NSC) in Bukit Jalil, the home of the national athletes and sports administrators, yesterday.

From his speech and his action, he showed that he had the interest of the national athletes close to his heart.

“Time and distance can be measured but not courage and determination. But that is what I see in the faces of the athletes here, and I will do all I can to help them achieve excellence for the country,” said Shabery to a thunderous applause from the national athletes and officials.

“Today, I have been given a red carpet welcome. Next time I intend to come here and listen to what the athletes have to say without having all these officials around. I am open to the athletes’ ideas and suggestions. I may even drop by and use the gymnasium here.”

Shabery also took time to visit some of the athletes in training yesterday, including those from weightlifting, archery, athletics, gymnastics, wushu and badminton.

He also shared with the athletes his three-pronged vision to strengthen Malaysian sports.

He aims to establish Malaysia as a sporting nation, to improve the nation’s medal tally in major sporting events and to turn sport into an industry.

“In future, I hope every Malaysian will be able to play at least one game. I hope many will be inspired to become like Lee Chong Wei or Nicol David or Shalin Zulkifli,” he said.

“We also want to improve our excellence in major tournaments. It is also my intention to make sport an industry. Rather than importing sporting goods from overseas, we can explore avenues to produce our very own. In future, there should be careers and job opportunities for people in sports.”

Shabery also said that he would look at successful sports models – like those in England, Australia and China – for Malaysia to emulate.

For now, Shabery plans to continue with the existing set-up in the Malaysian sport and not make changes just for the sake of changing.

Shabery has made a good start, let’s hope he will make a lasting impression.

The Star

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ex-coach's jail sentence cut to a year

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal yesterday sentenced former athletics coach C. Ramanathan to 12 months' jail for molesting two junior athletes 19 years ago. A three-man bench led by Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus unanimously dismissed Ramanathan's appeal against conviction, but varied the jail sentence of four years to a year, which was to run concurrently. Following yesterday's ruling, Ramanathan, 75, a former teacher, walked out a free man as he had served 10 months in Kajang Prison. Convicts get one-third remission for good behaviour while in prison. However, he will lose his pension. Hishamudin, who sat with Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail and Datuk Linton Albert, said the court found no merit to overturn the conviction. "However, in reducing the sentence, we considered Ramanathan's age and the long years the appeal has taken." Deputy public prosecutor Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud submitted that then High Court judge Tan Sri Abdull Hamid E...
2 comments
Read more

Badminton: Fans rooting for all-Malaysian semis

Reports: RAJES PAUL KUALA LUMPUR: The home fans will be rooting for an all-Malaysian men’s singles semi-final between Lee Chong Wei and Liew Daren. But Chong Wei is more fancied to advance than Daren in quarter-final matches against Indonesian Simon Santoso and Dane Peter Gade-Christensen respectively at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil today. Yesterday, Chong Wei defeated Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh 21-9, 18-21, 21-7 in a second-round match that saw the world number one struggling to adapt to the draught in the stadium in the second game. And Daren continued a fairy tale run in his home Open, blowing away a toothless Hsueh Hsuan-yi of Taiwan 21-14, 21-12. Although Choong Wei had to slog for the win over Tien Minh, the top seed and defending champion felt that he was playing better by the day. “I got off to a good start but found it hard to cope with the draught. I tried to catch up after losing my momentum but that did not happen and I decided to conserve energy for ...
11 comments
Read more

Rajagobal Let Off The Hook

PETALING JAYA, April 24 (Bernama) -- National head coach Datuk K. Rajagobal was let off the hook by the Football Association of Malaysia's (FAM) Disciplinary Committee after finding no evidence that he had violated FAM's Article 88, as claimed. FAM Disciplinary Committee chairman Datuk Taufik Abdul Razak said the committee had decided not to charge Rajagobal after carefully analysing the video of the post-match press conference by the 56-year-old coach. "After listening to the recording of the post-match press conference, we decided to drop the charge against Rajagopal as he did not make such a statement. "Maybe his (Rajagobal) assessment and comments of the match was misconstrued by the media. There was no mention of the FAM policy throughout his comments," said Taufik after emerging from a three-hour Disciplinary Committee meeting at Wisma FAM in Kelana Jaya, here, Wednesday. Rajagobal who does not mince his words when asked to com...
4 comments
Read more