PETALING JAYA, June 14 — Common sense has prevailed and the four junior athletes who qualified for the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland from July 19 to 24 will go to Europe after all.
The quartet — Khairul Hafiz Jantan, Badrul Hisyam Manap, Mohd Rizzua Haizad and R.Kirthana — wanted to skip the world meet to compete in the Malaysia Games (Sukma) in Kuching from July 26 to 29, a decision which was blasted by athletics fans.
It is learnt the decision was reached after a meeting with National Sports Council (NSC) director general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail on Sunday an announcement is expected in the next couple of days.
Khairul, the Asian Junior 100m champion and Asean 100m gold medallist Badrul are from Tunku Mahkota Ismail Sports School while triple jumper Kirtana and 110m huddler Rizzua are from Bukit Jalil Sports School.
This is the first time four Malaysians have qualified for the World Championships.
When approached on Sunday, Shapawi said they were working on an amicable solution.
“Having done so well at the Asian Juniors, we want to test them against the world’s best,” said Shapawi.
“We have to look at their training regime as well. We must make sure they do well when they competed.”
NSC’s new national coaching director Allan Philip Black, who began work last month meanwhile has been putting programmes in place to see the national contingent come out tops in the SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur next year.
“I want to put all 500 coaches in the country into a Malaysian Coaching Association. This will allow them to be linked. To become champions, we need a driven coaching programme with a template to measure progress and performance,” said Allan at the two-day coaching forum which began yesterday.
The Australian, who was brought in to restructure the coaching setup in Malaysia is a former basketball player with the Nunawading Spectres.
He had previously served as the Western Australia Institute of Sport as high performance director and has been involved in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.
