KUALA LUMPUR: Cash should not be the driving force for young cyclists.
Instead, honour and the drive to be the best should be their motivation.
This was Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s response to criticism on social media following a viral post which showed him handing over RM10 to RM30 mock cheques to participants during Sunday’s Junior Cycling Malaysia first round series.
Khairy said he feared that if young cyclists were ‘spoilt’ with monetary rewards, they would ignore the true spirit of competing in sports.
“We want them to grow up with the right values and attitude. Yes, money is important and if they do well in sports, they will be financially rewarded later on but let's not spoil them from when they are young,” Khairy said in a Facebook posting when commenting on the Junior Cycling Malaysia (JCM) fiasco.
Khairy admitted although the prizes were small in value, JCM had chosen to do so to garner an interest, to expose young cyclists to competitions as well as to instil the will to win and not because of monetary reward.
He added the prizes were made known to participants during registration and via JCM websites, thus it should not raise the issue of not being aware of the prizes or feeling unappreciated.
“It (prizes) was never an issue with parents as they willingly sacrificed their time for the sake of their child’s interest in the sport of cycling,” said Khairy while adding parents were happily present at the event to support their children.
However, he admitted the only thing that needs rectifying was the mock cheque presentation, which JCM will not be practiced in the next series.