SEPANG: The Road to Gold (RTG) programme needs to be given adequate time to run its course in order for Malaysia to succeed in its mission to bag the first Olympic gold medal, opined national track cycling coach John Beasley.
He said the programme needs to be given the chance to continue uninterrupted and emphasised that it possibly needs at least another Olympic cycle to fully evaluate its effectiveness.
“This is an elite programme, understand that it’s going to take time to build that gold medal performance.
“Give Malaysia that privilege to look after their best of the best, and I’ll guarantee it will reward you tenfold. But if you stop it, we start at the beginning all over again,” he said, pointing out that stopping and starting initiatives in the past has stifled progress.
He said this when met after returning from the Paris 2024 Olympics Games at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) here, yesterday.
The Australian said the RTG programme has so far succeeded in fulfilling the athletes needs in terms of equipment or emotional backing, and he believes if continued, it is not a matter of ‘if’ Malaysia will manage to bring home a gold medal, it is just a matter of ‘when’.
“I think you can see what we started already. Even though, we didn’t bring any gold, silver or bronze medals this time, but you saw the performance. There were some really good performances at this game, so please don’t take that away from the athletes and the RTG programme,” he said.
However, he said moving forward, the programme should only be made available for top athletes and be avoided of any interference from ‘politics’ to ensure it runs as it was intended.
The RTG programme was introduced by the Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS) last year as a national project with the objective to coordinate the country’s efforts in hunting for the maiden gold medal at the Olympic Games.
It however has yet to bear fruit in 2024 Paris Olympic Games as the national contingent did not secure any gold medal and it brought back only two bronze medals through men’s singles shuttler Lee Zii Jia and men’s doubles pair Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik.
