PETALING JAYA – The decision to include or drop athletes for the Road to Gold (RTG) programme will be discussed by the programme committee at the second meeting next week.
RTG coordinator Datuk Stuart Ramalingam said the programme secretariat will present a report on the athletes’ current performance before the committee decides to drop or include new athletes in the programme.
“As we know, RTG has criteria that need to be met for athletes to be included or dropped, they also know this. Current performance is important for them to remain in the programme,” he told reporters after presenting the Jalur Gemilang flag to athletes competing in the 2023 Special Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany here today.
Athletes looking to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics still have a chance to show their capabilities, as the qualifications have just begun for sports such as badminton and track cycling.
There have been several athletes in the RTG programme who have not been performing well, including professional badminton mixed doubles pair Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing, who have dropped out of the world top 10 ranking, which has raised concerns.
Stuart mentioned that not all athletes who are not in the top 10 world rankings need to be dropped from the programme, as consideration would be given to how some cases were due to injuries.
"All that will be discussed in the meeting. I am not a technical person, so I can’t comment much about it.
“Athletes need to know about this as they have agreed to the acceptance and exclusion criteria,” he said. – Bernama, June 11, 2023
