It’s bargaining time before final decision
Malaysia’s playoff on Sunday. THE final list of sports for the Asean Para Games in Malaysia next year has yet to be decided as competing nations continued to push for the inclusion of their favoured sports at the Asean Para Sports Federation (ASPF) board of governors meeting in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
Paralympic Council of Malaysia (PCM) vice president Datuk Subramaniam Raman Nair (First Admiral, rtd) admitted that coming to a satisfactory conclusion among all parties (centre) celebrates scoring against New Zealand in the fifth placing
Pic by Mohd Azren Jamaludin was taking longer than expected.
The meeting, which was expected to be concluded by 4.30pm yesterday, may resume today if no final decision was taken.
“There have been a couple of appeals which is causing the slight delay,” said Subramaniam.
“We have certain directives from the government as well as requests from ASPF members which we have to match to ensure the games will be fair to everyone.
“This is the final bargaining point and we have to be careful as there will be no changes once a decision is made. We expect to have the final list tomorrow (today).
“We are expecting to have a total of 16 or 17 sports and it will definitely be more than what Singapore had hosted (15) last year.”
He declined to name the sports and nations making the appeals.
Subramaniam has been given the task of chef-de-mission for the Malaysian contingent at the games.
“The sports minister (Khairy Jamaluddin) has given us a new target for the games which is to finish higher than we did in Singapore. Once the final list is out we will analyse (strengths and weaknesses).”
Malaysia finished third at the Singapore edition with a total haul of 52 gold, 58 silver and 37 bronze. Thailand emerged overall champions on 95-76-79 while Indonesia (81-74-63) came in second. By Fadhli Ishak