KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6 — The National Sports Council (MSN) has agreed to increase the number of athletes for swimming under the Podium Programme next year.
Malaysia Swimming Federation (MS) assistant secretary Nurul Huda Abdullah said currently they only have four athletes in the Podium Programme but NSC had in principle approved up to 10 athletes.
She said among the athletes include Andrew Goh, Bryan Leong Xin Ren, Terence Ng, Jayden Tan, Low Zheng Yong and Ong Yong Qi.
“In fact, a group of them are actually going to compete in Queensland (Australia), from the December 9 to 16. They will be leaving this afternoon and it will be their last competition for 2023.
“We’ve actually planned a quite number of competitions for them to meet that qualification period next year. We hope that many more podium athletes will qualify for the Olympics,” she told reporters after the Sports Working Committee Meeting (JKK) at MSN, here today.
Meanwhile, Nurul Huda said MS with MSN today discussed the long term project in preparations towards 2025 and 2027 SEA Games.
She said throughout the discussion, they proposed to have a foreign technical director, head coach and a coach, while for junior athletes they are demanding for one foreign coach and two local coaches but it depends on budget and the salary scheme that MSN offers.
“We were very fortunate to receive quite a number of applications from overseas, such as the United States, Australia and Europe. We are hoping to get the best coach we can with the highest budget that we can get at.
“We also have the option on the table that of course for local coaches, we want to promote our local coaches and we want to develop our local coaches. However, if we are unable to get any local coaches that will be to foreign coaches and we have already agreed this with NSC,” she added. — Bernama