KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Weightlifting Federation (MWF) president Datuk Ayub Rahmat is hoping the government will further strengthen support for national sports associations.
Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh earlier this week announced RM1 million funding for four sports - weightlifting, taekwondo, archery and shooting - which will be disbursed next year to boost development efforts.
Ayub lauded the move and hopes the government will listen and consider feedback given by NSAs.
"We shared our grouses and the challenges we have faced with the minister during the Paris Olympics post-mortem. I'm happy to see her being open to feedback which can be harsh, but she responded swiftly with assistance," said Ayub.
"When an athlete wins, they get the praise and the rewards but when they don't perform, the blame goes to the sports associations and there will be calls for the president to step down too, this is not fair.
"The authorities need to look at helping or rewarding the associations as well. For an athlete to be successful, it starts from the association, there's plenty of planning and strategizing involved from getting the coaches and setting training programmes."
"So when there's a reward or incentive for successful athletes, we hope the associations also will be rewarded as well.
"The reward is not for us to enjoy, it's for us to strengthen the association administration so we can run our programmes better."
Weightlifting is now seen as a medal prospect sport for Malaysia at the Olympics following Aniq Kasdan's fourth place finish in the men's under-61kg class event at the Paris Games in August.
Ayub said that it is possible to produce more world class weightlifters in the mould of Aniq if more state governments take the sports seriously.
"Weightlifting is not an expensive sport and it is possible to produce world class athletes with proper planning. We have states like Perlis, Johor and Selangor doing well with their programmes and we hope all the other states can run programmes as well," he said.
"If all the states work hard, we can have quality athletes like Aniq and Commonwealth champion Aznil (Bidin) from every state and brighten our chances of winning the gold medal in the Olympics."