KUALA LUMPUR, March 4 — The National Sports Council (NSC) have denied allegations by several athletes claiming they have been dropped from national teams when, in fact, their contract ended at the end of last year.

NSC director-general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail stressed that although the programme towards the 2018-2019 Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and SEA Games ended on Dec 31 last year, their contracts were extended until March as “cooling period” and for re-evaluating the next cycle of athlete preparation programme for major multi-sport Games.

“However, the athlete preparation programme for this year’s Olympics, which began in 2016, is still on and will continue until the Tokyo Games end in August,” he said after attending a briefing on the COVID-19 outbreak with the Health Ministry at NSC today.

Shooter Muhammad Ezuan Nasir Khan had voiced his displeasure at being dropped after donning national colours for 14 years.

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Ahmad Shapawi said NSC have held talks with other major stakeholders to start the next cycle of athlete preparation programme aimed at the 2021 SEA Games, 2022 Asian Games and 2022 Commonwealth Games.

“NSC, together with the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM), National Sports Institute (NSI) and national sports associations (NSAs), have completed the working committee meeting (JKK) involving 23 sports under the Podium and National Back-Up Programmes.

“The meeting was to finalise the name list of athletes and coaches as well as training and competition exposure for the next cycle of the athlete preparation programme beginning this year,” he said.

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A total of 472 athletes have been chosen to undergo training for the Podium Programme while 176 have been placed under the National Back-Up Programme.

However, the number of athletes for the Back-Up Programme is expected to rise once the Johor Malaysia Games (Sukma) end in July.

The athletes breakdown according to sports is 35 for this year’s Olympics, 125 for the 2022 Asian and Commonwealth Games, 312 for the 2021 SEA Games and 176 for the Back-Up Programme.

“A total of 93 local and 30 foreign coaches have been confirmed for both the Podium and Back-Up Programmes. We have also approved 531 competitions and 148 training stints for exposure purposes both locally and overseas for this year,” Ahmad Shapawi said. — Bernama