Malaysian athletes flop in Nagoya ahead of home SEA Games

KUALA LUMPUR: Southeast Asian countries Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines performed exceptionally well at the Asian Games in contrast to Malaysia.

Three years ago, Malaysian athletes won three bronze medals at the Hangzhou Asian Games.

Malaysia Athletics (MA) sent 20 athletes and set one medal target.

But the athletics team returned empty-handed, with just one athlete, Umar Osman, setting a personal best in the men's 800m.

The failure of national athletes in Nagoya is a warning to MA that their athletes are far from ready for next year's SEA Games, which Malaysia will be hosting.

MA was banking on discus athlete Irfan Shamsuddin to win a medal after rewriting his national record with an effort of 62.87m at the Course B Jozsef Mozsdenyi Memorial competition in Hungary in June.

Last year Irfan won bronze at the Asian Championships in Gumi, South Korea, with a throw of 58.82m but only managed 56.37m to finish a disappointing 10th of 11 athletes in Nagoya.

At the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in July, Irfan made no mark after failing in his first three throws.

The National Sports Council (NSC) should be stricter in sending athletes for overseas training and competitions.

Azeem Fahmi won 100m bronze at the 2023 Asian Games but in Nagoya he suffered an injury in the final, limping to eighth in 14.65 seconds.

The star of the Asian Games in Nagoya was Thailand sprinter Puripol Bonsoon, 20, who has shown tremendous progress by winning two golds and breaking the Asian Games record in both the 100m (9.90s) and 200m (19.98s).

Thailand's Joshua Atkinson did a personal best of 44.90 to win gold in men's 400m.

Singapore's Shanti Pereira won gold in the women's 200m and silver in 100m while Filipino Ernest John Obiena broke the Asian Games record by leaping 5.91m to win gold in the men's pole vault.

Danish Iftikhar Roslee, 19, did well to qualify for the final in the men's 200m to finish sixth in 20.89. He holds the national record of 20.73.

Shereen Samson Vallabouy also failed to defend her 400m bronze after exiting in the heats in 54.03, far from her national record of 51.79.

Andre Anura performed poorly in the men's long jump by only managing 6.59m, which was more than a metre short of the national record of 8.02m.

MA must conduct a review to find out why national athletes failed to perform despite having good coaches and enough competitions.

There are 48 golds at stake at the SEA Games and Malaysian athletes have managed to win five gold medals in the last four editions since 2019 in the Philippines.

Can the national athletes bounce back to deliver at next year's SEA Games, or will it be another failure?