Dato Gerald Rentap Jabu
KUCHING (June 24): Despite the uncertainties, Sarawak will try its best to give other states a good run for their money in the coming Malaysia Games (Sukma) to be held in Kuala Lumpur, said Deputy Minister for Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development I, Dato Gerald Rentap Jabu.
He said it would be a huge task for the state contingent to emerge as overall champion in Kuala Lumpur because the host kept changing the goal post.
“Our minister Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah and our state want us to be champions but if you change the goal post all the time, which does not favour us, it’s difficult for us to achieve our goal.
“Anyway, our athletes are all ready. A lot of them have won medals in the national and pre-Sukma tournaments recently, which boosts our morale,” he said when asked about the state’s preparation for Sukma during a press conference on the launch of the Rakan Muda Comfort Room programme here yesterday.
Rentap said although Sukma is just around the corner, there are still many uncertainties in terms of venue and number of sports to be contested, which had made it a bit difficult for them to design proper training and prepare logistics.
He said there were also some sports where the number of categories to be contested was uncertain and whether the sports would be competed or not.
He pointed out that in sports like weightlifting, there are only four or five categories to be competed, while diving is likely to be dropped because the host state is asking for at least six states to confirm their participation, which he said is impossible to achieve.
“Diving is not only our gold mine but is also an international Olympics sport, yet it will not be included in the coming Sukma. I don’t understand the people over there.
“Until now, we also don’t know the actual venues for some of the sports, until we can’t prepare ourselves in terms of logistics,” he said.
Rentap lamented that the uncertainty in venues is also a struggle for every team because Kuala Lumpur always has traffic jam problems.
“But I believe, as much as we can, we are preparing. We are doing our final stages of preparation.
“We have only 85 days left. That is a short time to me, but we will do our best,” he said.
from Borneo Post Online https://ift.tt/qGodBAX
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