Wednesday October 3, 2012

Zol has faith in new MAU leaders

By AFTAR SINGH

KUALA LUMPUR: National Sports Council (NSC) director general Datuk Zolkples Embong is confident that new Malaysian Athletic Union (MAU) president Datuk Zainal Abidin Ahmad and his deputy president Datuk Wan Hisyam Wan Salleh can restore the fortunes of the badly battered sport.

Zolkples feels that the previous MAU leadership wasted too much time trying to “solve unrelated issues that they ignored the sport”.

“The new MAU committee have a lot of catching up to do to put athletics back on track,” said Zolkples, who met Zainal and Wan Hisyam yesterday.

“It was a good meeting and I’m positive they can make things right,” said Zolkples.

“NSC will work closely with them to raise the standard of athletics.

Our priority is next year’s Myanmar SEA Games. We will do whatever we can to make sure that athletics performs better than it did in the last Games.”

Zainal said they would start implementing the athletics training programme soon to make sure they get a better medal haul in Myanmar.

“We need to start improving on every aspect of athletics to make Malaysia a regional power again in track and field. It will take time and we must start working on it immediately,” said Zainal.

Asked if the nine-gold target set by Shahidan for next year’s SEA Games was achievable, Zainal said: “It’s too early to set targets.

“We will use the national championships this weekend to gauge the standard of the athletes.”

Malaysia won six gold medals in Palembang but the men’s 4x400m relay team were stripped of the medal after Mohd Yunus Lasaleh tested positive for a banned substance.

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