KUALA LUMPUR, July 8 — Lack of funding was not the main cause of the Malaysian contingent showing their worst performance at the SEA Games in Cambodia which closed on May 17, said Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh.
She said the National Sports Council (MSN) has collected all the inputs on challenges faced by athletes from sports associations that were raised during the post-mortem meetings held on June 30 and July 1.
“Lack of budget is not the main factor, there are various factors, they (MSN) have gathered (the inputs), we will see one by one.
“We also want to make sure that if there are challenges that can be overcome in the near term before the Asian Games, we will overcome them,” she told reporters at the Allianz Moveforward Carnival at MSN here, today.
Commenting on the matter, MSN Director-General Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail said the underwhelming performance of the national contingent could be attributed to the management of training programmes, athlete management and the release of athletes from their jobs.
He said this was informed by the sports associations at the post-mortem meeting sessions.
“That were the key points that we will collected and presented again to our board and the minister where things that can be overcome immediately and in the long term, we will overcome,” he said.
On June 30 and July 1, Hannah together with MSN, 38 representatives of national sports associations and the Olympic Council of Malaysia (MOM) undertook a post-mortem session following the worst performance of the national contingent at the biennial games.
The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Nippon Sports Science University (NSSU) in Tokyo, who were asked to monitor the sessions in addition to making suggestions for improvements for the SEA Games in the future.
At the Cambodia SEA Games 2023, Malaysia recorded its worst performance in the history of the biennial games since 1959, when it ended the challenge in seventh position overall with 34 gold, 45 silver and 97 bronze medals, thus failing to reach the target of 40-37-64.
