KUALA LUMPUR: Sensational national sprinter Muhammad Azeem Mohd Fahmi does not want to be pressured to hunt for a slot at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games which will open in July.
On the other hand, the 20-year-old athlete based in the United States wants to continue to focus on regaining the fun pace to compete on the international stage.
However, the Teluk Intan-born runner said that for now he is at his best and wants to continue to remain positive and is confident that he can continue to shine in any tournament he will participate in this year.
“I’m not stressing about Olympics, if there is good fortune, then there is. Right now, I just want to focus on getting back the enjoyment of competing and embrace myself,“ he said when contacted by Bernama today.
Muhammad Azeem, better known as Azeem Fahmi, is the national 100 metre (m) record holder with a record of 10.09 seconds (s) and has done his best record this season of 10.24s while participating at the LSU Invitational Athletics Championships in Los Angeles on April 27.
However, the record is still a long way off when compared to qualifying for Paris which requires him to record 10s to qualify on merit in the popular event.
The Malaysia Athletics Federation (MAF) selection committee must submit the name of either Azeem Fahmi or Shereen Samson Vallabouy to the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) before July 8 if the two athletes are unable to qualify on merit.
Azeem Fahmi will face several tournaments in a row starting with the Malaysian Open on June 14-16 followed by the Kazakhstan Open on June 23-24 and the ASEAN University Games (AUG) 2024 in Surabaya-Malang, Indonesia on July 2-5.
“So with this back-to-back tournament, I will stay in Malaysia after the Kazakhstan Open, and after AUG 2024, I will have a training camp in Germany with my team,“ he said.
