Body defends Malaysia's performance
Body defends Malaysia's performance
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): The Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) has
defended Malaysia's performance at the Southeast Asian Games in
Thailand after Premier Mahathir Mohamad and senior sports
officials criticized the contingent for a dismal show.
OCM president Khir Johari said he was happy with the Malaysian
team's performance, although Mahathir and senior officials had
described as dismal the 31-gold haul at the recently-concluded
biennial regional games in Chiang Mai.
Some senior sports officials had even blamed Malaysia's French
football coach Claude Le Roy for the team's failure to reach the
semifinals of the games for the third consecutive time.
"We did well considering the circumstances. We must admit the
Thais are much better and clearly a class above us," said Khir,
who led the Malaysian delegation to the games, which ended
Sunday.
Khir warned that the negative response and publicity would
adversely affect younger athletes preparing for the 1998
Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
"What is needed at this stage is to keep calm and re-evaluate
our position, " Khir said, adding that Malaysia had improved when
it moved up to fourth position from fifth spot in the Southeast
Asian Games in 1993.
Thailand emerged the champion in the overall medal tally with
157 gold medals in the games which saw 10 countries taking part.
Indonesia was in second spot with 77 gold medals and the
Philippines third with 33 gold medals. Malaysia took fourth spot.
Malaysia's National Sports Council had set a 50-gold target while
the OCM had expected 40.
Last Saturday, Mahathir blamed the team's lack of patriotism
and discipline for its dismal performance while Malaysia's deputy
chef-de-mission Fadzil Othman said "Malaysian sports had no
depth".
Even Sports Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had called for a review
of the poor performance.
However, Khir said as far the OCM was concerned, the OCM had
only set a 40-gold target for the Malaysian athletes.
"We worked towards the target and having failed to reach the
target is no crime," he explained.