Published on: Friday, January 29, 2010 |
Kota Kinabalu: It is still unclear what Sabah's target will be for the Sukma (Malaysia Games) in Melaka, which will be happening this June, but the emphasis will be to focus on sports in which Sabah is traditionally strong.
Youth and Sports Assistant Minister, Datuk Jahid Jahim said that at the moment all teams for the various sports that Sabah will be competing is being monitored for better performance.
"There is no finalised target but the emphasis will be to focus on sports that can bring in medals.
"Aquatics is the anchor of our sports but we also have other sports, which we are quite good at. We are also monitoring how other states are doing in their preparation," he said.
Jahid told reporters this when met at the Likas Sports Complex here, yesterday, where he was making rounds to see the final preparations for lawn bowls, weightlifting, swimming and fencing.
Also present was Sabah Sports Council Director Abdul Rahman Laman and Deputy Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Youths and Sports Penyuki Matta, among others.
Jahid said that Sabah's Sukma preparations began when the last Sukma ended.
"At that time we identified who are the eligible athletes for the 2010 Sukma in Melaka and we have maintained them based on their current performance together with other athletes.
"We are now in phase two in training sessions for the relevant sports and we are now monitoring the performances of all our athletes," he said.
When asked how many sports Sabah will be competing in this year's Sukma, Jahid said, "At the moment we have 20 sports but we will consider to take part in other sports".
He said that there could be additional sports that Sabah will take part in, but lamented that it would unlikely be in all sports included in Sukma.
"There will most likely be more than 20 sports, possibly 23, but we cannot take part in all the sports that wrould be competed because we will focus only on certain sports which we are strong in," he said.
He went on to say that all the Sabah athletes that would be competing this year are currently being monitored for their performance and that the most important thing for all of them now is to focus their attention on training in order to shape up for the Games.
"They have approximately 130 days to fine tune themselves before the Games and we expect them to make use of the time left to get fully prepared," he said.
Jahid added that after making a round of all the sports teams that will be included in the Sabah Sukma contingent, the findings would be reported to the Minister (Datuk Peter Pang En Yin) before an assessment of Sabah's target can be made.
For the moment, comparisons between the various teams/sports are being conducted to determine what needs to be done to further enhance their preparations.
