KUALA LUMPUR: The Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) is keeping under wraps the full list of the 871 athletes who will form the national contingent at Kuala Lumpur Sea Games next month.
Citing a need for secrecy to avoid giving away details of the strength of the Malaysian contingent, OCM secretary-general Datuk Low Beng Choo referred the media to the 38 national sport associations for a breakdown of the list of athletes while OCM president Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja’afar deferred to Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to announce the Sea Games gold medal target.
National Sports Council director-general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail did, however, confirm that Sultan of Terengganu, Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin and Khairy will be part of the contingent as part of the polo and endurance squads.
“It’s a question of strategy because everybody is asking and nobody is giving,” said Beng Choo of the Malaysian contingent, the largest in the country’s history and also the biggest contingent at the 2017 edition among the 11 nations competing.
“All countries want to know who Malaysia are fielding but nobody wants to give their full list to anyone. We would be the only country to release names while nobody else will have done so.”
As for the gold medal target, Shapawi left everyone guessing by saying an analysis of Malaysia’s rivals strength will be done before an announcement.
“The exact figure will be delayed as we have just finished a workshop with the associations and we will then table it to our leaders before announcing the target,” he said.
“The target could be any figure above 100 gold medals, that is what Thailand is hoping to get, or you can look at the individual targets of the associations and arrive at your own figure.”
Tunku Imran, who is also the Sea Games Federation president, said a total of 4,888 athletes from 11 countries were registered as of the June 30 deadline though the figure could come down by start of the Games on Aug 19.
“The fact that there is a very good entry from major countries augurs well for future of the Sea Games,” said Tunku Imran with Thailand (858), Indonesia (629), Singapore (582), Philippines (497) and Myanmar (457) also sending sizable contingents.
“We, at OCM, tried where ever possible to enter all events as long as the athlete can give a credible performance and be competitive. For Malaysia that is a very good sign that we will have a competitor in most events.”
Malaysia will not compete in seven of the 404 events to be held with no entries in the women’s 200m butterfly (swimming), men’s 10,000m and women’s 3,000m steeplechase, 10,000m and marathon.
The Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia also opted out of the men’s and women’s jumbo doubles in an agreement with regional countries to nurture the growth of the sport in Southeast Asia.
The women’s 3,000m steeplechase is set to be scrapped altogether with only Vietnam registering two athletes unless more enter by this weekend.
