MAAU needs a more drastic approach

KUALA LUMPUR, 9 DECEMBER, 2011: The Malaysian Amateur Athletics Union (MAAU) needs a more drastic approach to ensure its achievement does not continue to slide, especially at the Southeast Asian level. Minister of Youth and Sports Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek said the achievement of six gold medals through athletics at the SEA Games in Indonesia recently was unsatisfactory as five of the gold medals were contributed by senior athletes. "We need to see where we have gone wrong. Development? Management? It was the older athletes such as Noraseela Mohd Khalid and Roslinda Samsu who delivered the gold medals. "We want to see new faces, the second liners. This is what we hope for at the next SEA Games in Myanmar in two years time," he told reporters after attending the Sport Incentive Scheme (Shakam) presentation ceremony at Stadium Juara, Bukit Kiara, here today. At the ceremony, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak presented Shakam incentives worth RM629,996 to 91 athletes who had contributed to the 59 gold medals won at the Indonesian SEA Games recently. Meanwhile, MAAU president Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim said any issue relating to the organisation including suggestions by certain quarters that the MAAU supreme council submitted their resignations could not be decided hastily. "The matter could only be decided by the supreme council. Let the council do its work," he said.