Skip to main content

OLYMPIC GAMES: Medal prospects still a struggle

LOOKING FORWARD: OCM president calls for NSAs to plan for 2020 Games

.
OCM president Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja’afar addressing the press at OCM Headquarters yesterday. Pic by Yazit Razali

MALAYSIA'S list of athletes for the London Olympics  on July 27-Aug 12 is virtually finalised bar a few late bonus entries, but there is also cause for concern about the level of progress the country is making.
Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja'afar believes, though the number of qualifiers and strength of the contingent has slightly improved, national sports associations (NSAs) have not been doing enough.

With the deadline for registration of athletes for the Olympics looming on July 9, Malaysia has 31 athletes from eight sports who will compete in 23 events confirmed in the contingent.
There could yet be additional qualifiers via either wild cards, special invitations or ongoing qualifying competitions in athletics, swimming, weightlifting, women's badminton and archery.

Though Tunku Imran cited the number of qualifiers as positive compared to some other nations of similar stature to the country, the still struggling nature of the contingent when medal prospects are mentioned, is cause for some concern.

"Compared to four years ago, our divers and cyclists are in a better position than we were before.
"Badminton is depleted, but we have to see how Lee Chong Wei recovers," said Tunku Imran, who spoke after the OCM's selection committee meeting yesterday.

"In badminton, men's doubles -- which was once our strong point -- have really dropped in rankings.
"In other sports, we don't see the next line of athletes really coming up and making an impact.
"This is why, on a whole, we are more or less just about where we were before.
"It's because the NSAs have mostly been focusing on their elite programmes and all the funding goes there and there's not much left for junior development.

"We need to be looking much more seriously at junior development programmes right from schools.
"For this the Education Ministry has only recently announced that it is getting back into sports.
"We've lost quite a few years because of that, but now the NSAs need to look at this more seriously and collaborate with the Education Ministry on junior programmes in schools because that is where we should begin to find the future."

Apart from badminton, cycling, diving and archery, the rest of the qualifiers, Tunku Imran said, are going to London because they qualified and deserve to get the exposure.
"All NSAs should start to look at the 2020 Olympics from now if we want to see an improvement of our fortunes.

"We should take the 2016 Olympics as a stepping stone and look at the Olympics in 2020 as where sports that can't deliver now, will be targeting medals.

"It is eight years away and it is possible that we could see our fortunes change."

Meanwhile, the Malaysian National Cycling Federation's (MNCF) much awaited decision on its selection of the two road cyclists for the Olympics has come to a stalemate with the federation seeking a delay to June 16 for the final decision.

MNCF deputy president Datuk Naim Mohamad, did however, indicate to the selection committee that the top two candidates currently are Adiq Husainie Othman and Harrif Salleh.


Qualifiers

Archery:
Men's Individual and Team: Cheng Chu Sian, Khairul Anuar Mohamad, Haziq Kamaruddin
Women's Individual: Nurul Syafiqah Hashim

Cycling
Men's Track: Azizulhasni Awang (200m sprint & keirin), Josiah Ng Onn Lam (keirin reserve)
Men's Road: Muhamad Adiq Husainie Othman, Mohd Harrif Saleh (subject to final confirmation by MNCF)
Women's Track: Fatehah Mustapa (keirin)

Diving
Bryan Nickson Lomas (3m springboard individual, 3m springboard synchronised & 10m platform individual), Huang Qiang (3m springboard synchronised), Yeoh Ken Nee (3m springboard individual), Pandelela Rinong (3m springboard synchronised, 10m platform individual & 10m platform synchronised), Cheong Jun Hoong (3m springboard individual & 3m springboard synchronised), Ng Yan Yee (3m springboard individual), Traisy Vivien Tukiet (10m platform individual), Leong Mun Yee (10m platform synchronised)

Fencing
Men's Sabre: Yu Peng Kean

Shooting
Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi (women's 10m Air Rifle)

Sailing
Men's Laser: Khairulnizam Mohd Afendy

Weightlifting
Women's Events: athletes to be confirmed by MWF

Badminton
Lee Chong Wei (men's singles), Koo Kien Keat, Tan Boon Heong (men's doubles), Chan Peng Soon, Goh Liu Ying (mixed doubles), Tee Jing Yee (women's singles), Chin Eei Hui-Wong Pei Tty (women's doubles to be confirmed by BWF)

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