The participation of Malaysian athletes at the upcoming SEA Games in June will primarily be focused on their development instead of a collection of gold medals.
According to Youth and Sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin, the athletes need to be able to use a competitive platform to further develop themselves, and the SEA Games offers exactly that.
“We will look at the SEA Games as a developmental platform for our athletes and we will also push our reserves to do well this time,” Khairy Jamaluddin told Bernama.
“We will not only focus on securing Gold medals. Our evaluation will be based on general medal collection as well as the performance of our athletes and reserves.
Khairy went on to add that local athletes should aspire to achieve success on bigger platforms like the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games, instead of just focusing on the South-East Asian level.
He also claims that the selection criteria will be a little different this year, as athletes will not necessarily be picked based on their prowess and experience. More opportunities will be given to younger talent with the potential of doing well.
Khairy also revealed that they will not send an athlete like Datuk Lee Chong Wei to represent a badminton event, but focus more on younger athletes and reserves as an exposure for them to achieve better performances for bigger competitions in the near future.
“We will not send someone like Datuk Lee Chong Wei for the badminton event and instead focus more on the younger athletes and reserves,” Khairy told Utusan Malaysia.
Photo Credits: Arena Kereta
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