BUKIT JALIL – Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria said the Malaysian contingent’s failure to hit their 40-gold target at the recently concluded 32nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia was a blessing.
Malaysia finished seventh in the standings and could only take home 34 gold, 45 silver, and 96 bronze.
“I have been involved in the SEA Games since Singapore 2015 when I was the chef de mission and I know this (Malaysia’s poor performance) has been coming.
“I pity the minister and her deputy Adam Adli because they arrived at a time where we are at our lowest and it is not their fault that we are in this position,” he said at a press conference at the National Sports Council in Bukit Jalil today.
Norza commented that even if Malaysia achieved their 40-gold target in Phnom Penh, it would not have made a difference to Malaysia’s position in the standings.
“Are we going to benchmark ourselves with Singapore in sixth place or do we want to compete with table-toppers Vietnam?
“They beat us by over 100 golds, so where are we in terms of benchmarking ourselves?
“I believe this is a blessing because even if we had won 40 gold medals and hit our target, we are still far behind second place Thailand (74 golds) and third place Indonesia (53 golds),” he said.
Norza said that OCM were just monitoring from the background, saying the body was “glorified travel agents”.
“We were not part of the (SEA Games) programme, we are like glorified travel agents. We make selections and send the athletes to compete.
“But this is everyone’s responsibility. Our sports model is outdated, and we need to change. It started when Hannah made the Road to Gold (RTG) programme, which involved many stakeholders. I believe that something similar to the RTG has to be initiated for the regional games.
“We must institutionalise our reforms. Don’t talk about individuals. I said it back in Manila 2019 that if the poor performance of athletics and swimming, which represents the bulk of the gold medals, is not addressed, we can never bring ourselves up,” he said. – The Vibes, May 19, 2023
