KUALA LUMPUR: The Youth and Sports Ministry's post-mortem on the Paris Games painted a grim picture of the national contingent's failure to meet the target of winning Malaysia's first ever Olympic gold medal.
Representatives from the sports associations and coaches were asked to present their respective sports reports, and the panel of experts from several local and international institutions found several issues as the lifestyles of high-performance athletes stuck out like a sore thumb.
The session's other findings were: the need for sports science services, specific National Sports Institute (NSI) teams, technology use, better coordination for professional athletes, injury management, clearer coaching roles, funding, structured development programmes, detailed performance analysis, a pool of younger athletes, and more female athletes.
Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh revealed that they are considering setting a code of conduct for national athletes, as some athletes have a sense of entitlement.
"The Badminton Assciation of Malaysia (BAM) advised their players to not be on social media and be focused. We are not able to roll that out to independent players. The other athletes were also active on social media, where they were uploading where they were hanging out when they were supposed to be practising," said Yeoh in a press conference.
"This is the world of social media... you cannot post that you are walking on the street, hanging with your friends... I really want to look into next year, setting up a code of conduct for athletes.
"I believe we need to listen to our athletes but at the same time, as far as the government is concerned, this government has given a lot in terms of Employees Provident Funds, Road To Gold (RTG) and anything.
"We gave, but it comes now that we demand discipline and they need to be professional and working hard. The coaches from China here say the athletes are not working hard enough compared to Chinese athletes."
She added that some Malaysian athletes need to know the difference between basic needs and entitlement.
"I think discipline is important, we heard from the experts, for example we have athletes saying that 'we don't want to work with this mental coach' and they don't need a mental coach, 'I'm comfortable with my own coach' and the experts says no — you should need a mental coach as there are things your coach can't do.
"The athletes need to act professionally and they need to come with new standards, our athletes currently need to know the difference between basic needs and a sense of entitlement.
"Under the RTG we gave top-up service for athletes and it's good to hear from other nations about what is basic and too entitled, we are trying to find the balance."