BANKING ON 4 CORE SPORTS

Chef-de-mission Subramaniam believes they can help achieve targets

SYAFIQ AZNAN syafiq.aznan@bh.com.my

THE national contingent will bank on four sports to achieve a 103 gold target and emerge overall champions at the Asean Para Games in Kuala Lumpur (Para KL2017) on Sept 17-23.

Malaysia Chef-De-Mission Datuk Subramaniam Raman listed athletics, swimming, tenpin bowling and cycling as the sports whose national athletes are expected to dominate.

He believes they will contribute 75 per cent of the 103 gold target.

"We are strong in these four sports where there are over 80 events on offer," said Subramaniam during a press conference at the Malaysia Paralympic Sports Excellence Centre in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

“In fact, I have no doubt we are capable of doubling the number of gold we won in Singapore two years ago (52 gold) as we are entering more events this time.

"I am sure we will emerge overall champions if we can hit our 103 gold target as it is almost one-third of the 368 gold on offer in total at Para KL2017."

Malaysia will field the biggest contingent at Para KL2017 with 331 athletes and 169 officials. In total, 1,452 athletes from 11 countries will be competing in 16 sports offering 368 events at the games.

Subramaniam added that the Malaysian contingent will not be given packed-food during the games to avoid food poisoning issues which affected Malaysian athletes during the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games

“We will supply food to our athletes using other means. For example, we could prepare food at the competition venue to minimise the risk of contaminated food."

Sixteen Malaysian athletes suffered food poisoning at KL2017, with a number of them forced to withdraw from their events.

after the 2017 Southeast Asian Games from 17 to 23 September 2017 with 479 events in 16 sports to be featured in the games.