Skip to main content

NSC confident of best ever medal haul in 2010 Asian, Commonwealth Games



NATIONAL Sports Council (NSC) director general Datuk Zolkples Embong believes Malaysia will surpass its all-time Asian and Commonwealth Games gold medal records in next year's editions.
Zolkples said Malaysian athletes have improved and should be able to produce a strong showing in both Games next year.

Malaysia's best showing in the Commonwealth Games was achieved in the 1998 Kuala Lumpur edition, when the national contingent won 10 gold, 14 silver and 12 bronze medals.

In the Asian Games, Malaysia's best ever haul of eight gold, 17 silver and 17 bronze medals was achieved in the 2006 Doha Games.



"Our athletes have been making waves in several sports and some are also World No 1s. I am confident we will surpass our all-time Commonwealth and Asian Games records next year," said Zokples in his presentation entitled 'High Performance Sports' at the National Sports Convention in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Zolkples said sports which produced unexpected gold medals in the Sea Games will be brought into the NSC's elite programme.
"We are looking to include boxing. I believe Malaysian boxers have a chance in the Asian and Commonwealth Games."

He said NSC's back-up programmes has also brought dividends in identifying new talent.

"A total of 40 back-up athletes qualified on merit for the recent Sea Games and they contributed one gold, five silver and seven bronze medals. It shows that the programme is working well."

Meanwhile, the Higher Education Ministry has brushed off the idea of setting-up a sports university.

Ahmad Naim Ismail, the ministry's deputy chief secretary (Sports Division), in his presentation on 'Sports in Universities', said existing universities were offering sports related degrees, Masters and PhD programmes.

"The concerned universities are also taking the initiative to improve their sports science programmes. We don't need a sports university for now," said Ahmad Naim.

He said 20 per cent of the country's national athletes were currently pursuing courses in public universities.

The Higher Learning Ministry has also identified eight universities which will conduct sports excellence programmes, starting next year.

"Each university will be entrusted with one sport," he said.

The selected universities are Universiti Malaya (netball), Universiti Putra Malaysia (rugby), Universiti Teknologi Mara (football), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (cricket), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (sailing), Universiti Malaysia Sabah (taekwondo), Universiti Utara Malaysia (golf) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (swimming). NST

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