KUALA LUMPUR – National track cycling high-performance director John Beasley is hoping for more female coaches to be included in the coaching line-up, citing that there are currently only three female coaches in the setup.
However, the Australian said that it will take time to scout for female coaches as cycling is such a small sport participation-wise.
“We have to look at it from a different perspective, so maybe we could recruit sports science graduates who can be mentored into becoming coaches,” he told the media after the Sime Darby Foundation Women and Girls in Sports Forum, here today.
Beasley said that it is vital to have female coaches taking care of female athletes, especially the young ones.
“If I were a dad, I’d be horrified to hand my daughters to a group of males. There are a lot of changes that go on in a young adolescent female when she is growing up. We should have facilities and good female coaches around them as that would be ideal for me.
“For me, children should be with their parents. The parents teach their children discipline and manners, all the things that get missed at sports schools.
“But it’s hard for them because they go to sports schools at a young age,” further adding that the current system is not perfect but in the future, he hopes that young female athletes can live at home with their families.
“I’m in favour of a decentralised system and only the high performers should be at the National Sports Council. The rest should be based in state institutions, and we should have a club-based sport, which we don’t have at the moment,” he said.
Meanwhile, Beasley wants to see a close-circuit racing series happen two or three times a week around the greater Kuala Lumpur area to create a culture and grow track cycling.
“There are a lot of things that we need to do, but I’ve seen Malaysia take monumental steps from when I started in 2006 to where we are now.
“But we still have such a long way to go,” he added. – February 7, 2024