KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 2 — The Malaysian Amateur Boxing Association (PTAM) today made an about turn on the status of national boxer Muhamad Farkhan Mohd Haron’s participation in the Myanmar SEA Games from Dec 11 to 22.
Its honorary-secretary, Mohamed Jani Ismail said the Johor boxer was still in the National Sports Council (MSN) 2013 SEA Games programme but was not in the initial list of six boxers going to Myanmar.
“The opportunity for Muhamad Farkhan to be in action at the SEA Games is still open and we do not intend to stop him from going to Myanmar,” he said when contacted by Bernama today.
Yesterday, PTAM had announced dropping Muhamad Farkhan from its list of boxers to the Myanmar Games with the excuse that the 2009 Laos SEA Games gold medalist was not ready.
The national boxing body had instead listed Petrus Rudy of Sabah for the 75kg category with five other boxers for 2013 SEA Games.
Mohamed Jani clarified that the list of six boxers submitted to MSN was only the initial list and other boxers including Muhamad Farkhan still had the opportunity to make the cut if they displayed excellent performance at the 2013 Malaysia Cup Boxing Championship in Sabah from October 12 to 16.
“Muhamad Farkhan can still make it to Myanmar at the Malaysian Cup Boxing Championship despite missing two or three championships earlier.
Prior to this, Muhamad Farkhan had alleged that he had withdrawn himself from the national squad since last month after making little progress under PTAM’s programme for the Myanmar SEA Games.
The boxer had also questioned the rationale of the association in sending him to the Asian Championship in Jordan recently when he had only trained for four weeks. – Bernama
