O promising athletes, where art thou?

THE objective of the biennial Malaysia Games (Sukma) is to unearth new talents.

But so far, poor entries have stood out like a sore thumb in the athletics competition.

There is a total of 45 gold medals at stake in athletics but it is sad to see a lack of participation from 14 states in Malaysia at the Perak Sukma yesterday.

Every state is required to send one athlete per event but there were only five entries in decathlon, six in the girls’ 5,000m walk and eight in the boys’ high jump.

Where are the talents? It is obvious that there is a serious dearth of promising athletes at the Games.

Surprisingly, the 14 states are able to field a full team for the National Schools Sports Council (MSSM) meet every year. Why are they scraping the barrel at the Sukma level?

It’s not only about the quantity – the quality of the track and field athletes is also agonisingly poor.

In the boys’ 10,000m, S. Poovasanthan of Pahang won the 25-lap race in 33:05.62, which was more than two minutes slower than the Sukma record of 31:47.95, which was set by A. Munusamy – 22 years ago in 1996 in Kuantan.

In the girls’ 5,000m walk, Koong Jia Lin of Pahang clocked 27:35.26 to win the race but her effort was also slower than the Sukma record of 25:08.74 set by Lai Jin Sze of Sarawak in Seremban in 2004.

It was the same in the boys’ high jump event.

Norshafiee Mohd Shah of Johor won the gold with a height of 2.06m, which was way off the Sukma record of 2.21m set by A. Kavee Alagan of Negri Sembilan in Kuantan in 2012.

How are Malaysia going to produce calibre athletes in the future if there is no quality at the lower level?

What have the State Sports Councils been doing for the last two years?

Where are their grassroot development programmes or more importantly, where have the funds channelled into development gone to?

Who is to blame – the state associations, state sports councils or the national body, the Malaysia Athletics Federation (MAF)?

What is the point of organising the Sukma if there is no full participation by all states?

It was so different when Perak hosted the last Sukma in 1994 – then, the quality of the track and field athletes were far better than those today.

All states need to wake up from their slumber and jump-start their grassroot development programmes before it is too late.