Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tan Sri Norza Zakaria said the lack of gold medals won by national swimmers in the Phnom Penh SEA Games is extremely worrying.
For the record, Malaysian swimmers only won one gold, three silver and four bronze medals in Phnom Penh out of a total of 39 gold medals contested.
Neighbours Singapore, meanwhile dominated the pool by winning a whopping 22 gold medals.
Speaking to the media after chairing the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) council-cum-annual general meeting (AGM) today, Norza once again took Malaysia Swimming (MS) to task for failing to improve from their previous haul in Hanoi.
“I don’t think MS made any progress at all. If you look at Singapore, they won 47 medals in swimming, and 22 were gold. That is very scary. I hope MS will do something as when it comes to multi-sport events, the bulk of the gold medals come from athletics and swimming,” Norza lamented.
Like swimming, athletics also failed to meet their 10-gold medal target set by the Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) by winning only five.
Norza, however, was not so critical as he believes there has been much improvement which bodes well for the national contingent ahead of the 2025 Bangkok and 2027 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.
“Even if they didn’t hit the target, these athletes were mainly first-timers. These athletes are being prepared for the Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur editions.
“I do see some improvement from athletics, but unfortunately, I can’t say the same about swimming,” added Norza, who admitted that it may be a long and winding shot for Malaysia to meet the 40-gold target with three days to go.
