KUALA LUMPUR: Sports observer Datuk Dr. Pekan Ramli welcomed Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh's initiative to formulate a code of conduct for national athletes.
The move was suggested following the findings by experts from the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics post-mortem, which revealed that some athletes demonstrated a sense of entitlement and lacked self-discipline.
Pekan said it's right for the government to demand results from the athletes after giving so much of support under various initiatives such as the Road To Gold (RTG).
The sports ministry, through the National Sports Council (NSC), allocated RM20.1 million this year for the RTG and Podium Programme to prepare athletes for the Paris Olympics, with RM13.2 million solely to RTG.
He said that it's time to stop pampering the athletes who need to be accountable for their performances.
"Mastering self-discipline is fundamental for athletes, it's nothing new; it was practised before. Despite after being given everything by the government under so many programmes, the benefit is not really seen from the athletes," he said.
"Previously people asked what the sports minister or ministry gave to sports or athletes, but now the government has given a lot under several programmes, but we still couldn't get the results.
"Now it's the time to ask what you can contribute to the country, not what the country does for you.
"To be a world-class athlete, you need to work hard and have the mindset to continue improving your performance.
"The government has provided everything; what must the athletes do now? When the athletes were pampered, we didn't get any results. We cannot pamper the athletes anymore; they need to produce results to get further support and we need to set a high Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the athletes."
Pekan added that the NSC and the national sports associations (NSAs) need to work harder to expand the talent pool to avoid relying too much on certain athletes.
"Now is the time to ask for results from the athletes after years of investment in them. Some athletes have been in the system for a long time without producing results.
"Ten years in sports without delivering results is not a good outcome. The maximum tenure for an athlete should be two Olympics cycles, after that we need to have new athletes to replace them.
"For that to happen, we also need to make sure we have a pool of new athletes who are ready to replace the ageing ones. More work is needed in this area so that we won't rely only on certain athletes."