Podium dropouts need to prove their worth

KUALA LUMPUR: Athletes dropped from the Podium Programme will not be absorbed automatically into the Kita Juara programme geared for the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games from Aug 1931.

National Sports Council director general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail said the athletes dropped from the Podium Programme will have to prove themselves worthy of inclusion in the Kita Juara programme.

“We will evaluate their results in competitions when they were under the Podium Programme and when they are in the midst of applying to get back into the final phase of the Kita Juara programme.

“We are going into the second phase of the Kita Juara programme, so the next review will be for the final phase sometime in July.

“The main criteria we are looking at is the athlete must have the ability to deliver the SEA Games gold medal or achieve the second placing qualifying standards at least.

“It is not the end of the road for the athletes dropped from the Podium Programme as we challenge them to achieve the desired results to be reconsidered for the next review.

“The Podium Programme is geared towards the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia and the Commonwealth Games in Australia where the athletes must be placed in the top 10 rankings at least,” said Shapawi after the SEA Games team managers meeting yesterday.

Shooting, paracycling and parasailing were the three sports dropped from the list when the 2017 batch of athletes for the Podium Programme were announced.

Four top shooters Nur Suryani Taibi, Mohd Ezuan Nasir Khan, Muslifah Zulkifli and Nur Ayuni Farhana Abdul Halim paid the price for underachieving last year and were dropped from the Podium Programme.

Nur Suryani and Nur Ayuni were SEA Games gold medallists in previous editions while Ezuan is a silver medallist at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.

117 athletes make up this year’s Podium Programme while there are more than 700 athletes under the second phase of the Kita Juara programme.