KUALA LUMPUR: Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh says that rules and regulations for the Malaysia Games (Sukma) will be revised in a bid to arrest the decline of women's sports in Malaysia.
Yeoh said that the decline of Malaysian women's sports over the past two Olympic cycles was due to a number of factors within the Malaysian sports ecosystem.
This includes a lack of willingness from states to support women programmes in Sukma, which is an under-21 competition aimed at boosting talent development.
No Malaysian woman was able to win a medal at the 2020 Tokyo and the recently concluded Paris Olympics.
"This decline is due to the cause and effect chain in the sports ecosystem," said Yeoh yesterday.
"Just look at Sukma for example. To conduct a specific girls' event, we need to have participation from six states. This means six states have to invest (to prepare) girls for that particular event.
"What happens is that states with limited budgets tend to omit girls' from that event. This has happened over the past few editions of Sukma.
"We had to sit and wait for six sports to come forward in the meetings and commit to sending girls' for a particular event.
"It is different in sports such as squash, where the parents themselves invest in their children. This is because most of the facilities for squash are in private (sector) places. This gives the girls in squash a chance.
"But it will not be easy in other sports if we have to sit and wait for states to invest in the girls.
"That is why we are now going to review the terms and conditions for states' participation in Sukma. We have to force the hand a little bit to ensure that the states invest in the girls.
"Otherwise when there is a limited budget, the girls will always lose out."
Yeoh, during the launch of the ACE Malaysia Squash Cup, said she hopes to see a Malaysian women's squash player win a medal at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Squash is the one of the few sports in Malaysia where there are more women players in the top-100 of the rankings compared to men.