Former sprint king of Southeast Asia, Nazmizan Muhammad, is against the idea of getting the services of ex-sprinter Frankie Fredericks or any other officers from Jamaica as negotiators for national track athletes, stating that it involves high costs.
Besides thinking the investment will be a waste of time, he added that the money will be in better hands if used to send groups of track athletes to train abroad, which has been proved by the National Union of Malaysian Cycling (PKBM) who produced few of the best cyclists of the country by having Australia based training.
“I completely disagree with suggestions from Malaysia Athletics Union (KOM) and Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS) who wants to exploit the expertise of outsiders, which will only result in huge expenses.”
“It would be wiser to send our athletes to train in Europe for a period of time, and participate in various tournaments each week, compared to train here with competitions held only three months once.”
“Take me for an example. Those days, before I won the SEA Games gold medal in the 100 and 200 metres, I was sent to train in the United States for three months. My level of performance improved after being exposed to many competitions during that time. So it would be better for the athletes to follow the same route,” said Nazmizan, as quoted in Harian Metro.
Reports suggested that KOM President Datuk Karim Ibrahim is interested in obtaining the services of the Namibian Fredericks, the two-time Olympic silver medalist, but his RM 150, 000 per month salary is beyond what they are capable of paying.
That, however, conflicts with the vision of Ministry of Youth and Sports, Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, who is keener on getting hold of expertise from Jamaica, which is considered the top country when it comes to track sports, as a prove of sprinters such as Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
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