KUALA LUMPUR: Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria admitted that it would be difficult for the Malaysian contingent to reach its 40-gold medal target at the South-east Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia.
However, he is confident that if the national contingent improves its performance, it will definitely be able to do some “magic” to add to its existing gold medal tally given that the biennial games has another four more days of competition until Wednesday (May 17).
“I feel it is difficult but it is almost the same as the situation in Hanoi (in the 2021 SEA Games in Vietnam) last year.
“I hope that in the remaining days, they (our competitors) will be able to work harder to ensure that we are able to add more gold medals,” he told reporters at the Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM) here today.
Malaysia is currently seventh in the medal table with 28 gold, 36 silver and 67 bronze medals compared to its target of 40 gold, 37 silver and 64 bronze medals.
Apart from this, Mohamad Norza feels Malaysia now should focus on sports that will offer more gold medals such as athletics and swimming when participating in sports competitions.
“I think the athletics squad showed improvement at this games. At the last games in Hanoi, they (competitors) were not in their best form but this time we have seen young athletes contributing gold medals.
“However for swimming, it is different. So I hope Malaysia Swimming (Federation) can do something after this. This is because when we participate in sports competitions, many gold medals come from swimming and athletic events,” he added. — Bernama
