MALAYSIA’S poor showing at the 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia is partly due to the political instability that had plagued the country due to the multiple changes in government in the past few years, said Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh.
According to Yeoh, numerous ministers have left their positions in less than a year over the last five years, causing hitches in long-term plans and strategies as they are unable to be properly implemented.
In what has been termed its “worst-ever performance”, Malaysia brought home 34 gold medals, 45 silver medals, and 97 bronze medals and finished in seventh place in the 1-country tournament, which saw the country failing to meet its 40-gold target.
“Apart from the economy, we see that poor sports performances is one of the most glaring outcomes from political instability,” she said at a press conference in Putrajaya today (May 19).
“Before the ministry has received a new budget and conducted a post-mortem, there is a change in ministers and the team’s direction.”
Yeoh went on to stress that she “will not say sorry for deciding to invest in youth athletes” in the face of mounting criticism of the country’s disappointing performance at the biennial games, claiming that this is the right decision for Malaysia.
According to the Segambut MP, the ministry is focused on developing fresh talent at the SEA Games, with 63% of the athletes headed to Cambodia being international debutants.
Despite Malaysia’s failure to meet its 40-gold medal target, Malaysia garnered an additional 40 medals as Malaysian athletes exceeded the silver medal target by eight and the bronze medal target by 32.
“For those who said that this is Malaysia’s worst-ever performance in the SEA Games, I have to clarify that winning in 51% of the categories we participated in is much better than our performance in 2019 in Manila, when we won 48% of the categories we participated in.
“Therefore, it’s unfair to judge the performance based on the gold medals we get,” she said.
Additionally, the poor result could have been avoided if it had concentrated on training new athletes shortly after the 2019 Philippines SEA Game, said Olympic Council of Malaysia president Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria, who was also present at press conference.
“If we were to introduce young athletes now, it would take another one or two tournament cycles to see improvement,” said Norza who is also Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) president. – May 19, 2023
Main pic credit: Bernama
