KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Olympian Association (MOA) totally understands the tasks of the country’s young Olympians and therefore will not push them to take part in programmes organised or carried out by the association.
At present, there are 367 members on record by MOA right after the end of the Rio Olympics last year and the association’s president, Karu Selvaratnam, young Olympians surely have a tightly packed schedule and training regime apart from competitive commitments.
Therefore, the former athlete who took part in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics has said that the MOA does not want to impose on the young Olympians and will give them breathing space especially for programmes under the association.
"It is difficult to get them because they are constantly busy and occupied preparing for competitions and the Olympics of course,” he said after MOA’s annual general meeting earlier today.
"They are busy training and taking part in competitions (both locally and overseas). So we will leave them be and when there’s free time from serious activities and competitive commitments, then they can come and help us out.
"At the same time, we will give them the support that they need.”
Olympians membership in the MOA is automatic and out of the 367 members, 311 are men while the rest are women.
Hockey has the most members with 117 while swimming has 13 female member athletes.
Speaking about the programmes that will be carried out next year, the former 4x400m relay runner said: “For this year, we were not that active because we did not have enough funds and the re-registration of the association took quite some time to complete.
"Next year, perhaps there will be more to look forward to. We have plans and activities in mind and it’s only a matter of time before we carry it all out.
"The committee has to step up efforts and be more proactive to ensure all the plans, youth programmes and charitable activities will become a reality and bear fruit. Next year looks interesting and we will hopefully be busy doing what we intend to do."
For this year, the association which was re-registered in 2016, has already signed up to be a part of a few programmes such as the World Pharmaceutical Day Run in Penang and the torch run in conjunction with the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games (KL2017) back in August.
Keywords: Malaysian Olympian Association, Malaysia, Olympics, MOA, Karu Selvaratnam, Association, Young Olympians, Athletes, Former Athletes, Olympians, Malaysian, Swimming, Hockey.