Malaysia rely on four sports to excel at Asean Para Games

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will be counting on four sports – athletics, swimming, bowling and cycling – to deliver the bulk of the 103-gold medal target and become the overall champions for the first time in 16 years at the Kuala Lumpur Asean Para Games from Sept 17-23.

Chef de mission Datuk Subramaniam Raman Nair said Malaysia have good depth of athletes in these four sports and they are expected to contribute at least 75% of the target.

The 16 sports that will be contested are archery, athletics, badminton, boccia, chess, cycling, foot- ball 5-a-side, football 7-a-side, goalball, powerlifting, volleyball, swimming, table tennis, bowling, wheelchair tennis and wheelchair basketball.

“From the 16 sports, our focus will be on athletics, swimming, bowling and cycling. We are hopeful that these four strong areas can bring us three quarter of the gold medals with the rest of the 12 sports chipping in the remaining 25% to help us achieve the target,” said Subramaniam at the meet-thepress session organised by the Paralympic Council of Malaysia (MPC) yesterday.

“There are a total of 368 golds up for grabs, so if we manage to hit the 103 target, that’s almost a third and based on our projection, I think we have a good chance of emerging as overall champions.”

In Singapore two years ago, Malaysia won 52 golds, 58 silvers and 37 bronzes to finish behind Thailand (95-76-79) and Indonesia (81-74-63).

While doubling up the gold medal count from the previous edition may seem ambitious, Subramaniam believes it is achievable due to the comprehensive preparations over the past two years and the home advantage.

“National Sports Council have put in a lot of effort in the last two years to develop our athletes under the Kita Juara programme, so we’re really optimistic,” said Subramaniam, who’s also the vice-president of MPC.

“Thailand and Indonesia are our strong contenders but they have a smaller contingent.”

Malaysia will have the biggest representation of 331 athletes followed by Thailand (291) and Indonesia (192).

There will be a total of 1,452 athletes from 11 countries taking part.

Malaysia have emerged as overall champions only once – at the inaugural 2001 Games in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia finished second twice in 2008 in Thailand and 2009 in Kuala Lumpur.