SEPANG – The Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) is giving three young national athletes the freedom to choose to either represent their states at Sukma or take on the national challenge at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships.
MAF technical director Robert Ballard said this was because of the overlapping dates of the two tournaments, with Sukma slated to take place from August 17 to 24 in Sarawak while the World Athletics U20 Championships will be held from August 27 to 31 in Lima, Peru.
He said that the governing body would respect the decisions made by the athletes and state associations, but he hoped they would be able to make the final decision as soon as possible before August 4.
“It’s not for MAF to decide for the athlete and we are not going to force an athlete to go somewhere. It will be the decision of the athletes and their respective state associations on whether they want to compete in Sukma or go to Peru.”
Ballard said this after welcoming the athletes’ return from the Asian U20 Athletics Championships in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates at Kuala Lumpur International Airport here today.
The athletics team managed to bag two bronze medals in Dubai through Ng Tak Sik (triple jump) and Pengiran Aidil Auf Hajam (200m), which saw them qualify on merit for the World Athletics U20 Championships and will be joined by Hanssen Yap Soo who recorded 10.41sec for the 100m.
Pengiran Aidil and Hanssen are both managed by the Sabah State Sports Council while Tak Sing is under Penang State Sports Council’s care.
Commenting about the success at the Asian U20 Athletics Championships, Ballard said he was proud of the athletes’ success considering that they were in the youth development group where there was no target set for them in the tournament.
“Three athletes achieved the minimum standard for the world under-20, so that’s a great achievement for us and a good step forward and we hope that you know in the future the next ones in Hong Kong in 2026 we may have a lot more qualifiers for world under-20s,” he said. – April 29, 2024