KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s National Sports Talent Plan (MyTP) could help address long-standing issues of age bias in athlete selection, which experts warn may have led to the country overlooking potential future stars.
Speaking exclusively to Scoop, Professor Emeritus Dr Johan Pion, a sports science and talent identification expert and architect of the Sport Compass system, said current selection structures often disadvantage so-called “late bloomers” due to differences in biological maturity and age grouping.
“One of the biggest challenges in youth sport is that children are compared at the same age, but they are not biologically the same,” he said.
“At 12 years old, one child may have just had a birthday and is effectively 11, while another may be almost 13. That one-year gap is very significant at that stage of development.”
He added that physical and biological maturity differences can lead to unfair exclusion of athletes who may only peak later in their development.
“You also have early and late maturers. Some children develop physically much earlier, and they naturally perform better at that age,” he said.
“But the late maturers are often the ones who have been systematically overlooked, even though they may become stronger athletes in the long term.”
Pion said Malaysia’s new talent identification framework under MyTP is designed to reduce such bias by introducing more data-driven and objective assessment methods, rather than relying solely on traditional observation-based selection.
“What we are trying to do with this system is shift away from subjective judgement alone,” he said.
“By using structured testing and benchmarking, we can identify potential that is not immediately visible in competition results at a young age.”
He said this approach is critical in ensuring Malaysia does not miss out on athletes who develop later but possess long-term elite potential.
“If we only select based on early performance, we risk losing many athletes who could become very strong at 18, 19 or 20,” he said. “The system must be able to recognise potential, not just current performance.”
Dr Pion said the broader ambition of MyTP is not solely focused on producing medal-winning athletes, but on creating a healthier, more active sporting culture nationwide.
“The goal is not just medals. Medals are part of the system, but they are not the main objective,” he said.
“The real goal is to get more children involved in sport, to improve physical literacy, and to develop better movers and healthier individuals.”
He added that elite success would be a natural outcome if the grassroots system is strengthened.
“If you build a strong foundation, then elite performance will follow,” he said. “But you cannot start with medals as the only target. That approach often fails in the long term.”
Malaysia’s MyTP, led by the National Sports Institute (ISN), is a long-term national framework aimed at improving how sporting talent is identified, developed and supported across all National Sports Associations.
It focuses on a more structured and data-driven approach to athlete development, with closer collaboration between stakeholders and sport-specific development pathways.
Dr Pion said Malaysia’s ambition to refine its talent identification system could eventually place the country among global leaders in sports science.
“If this system is properly implemented and continuously improved, Malaysia has the potential to become one of the leading countries in the world in talent identification by 2030 or 2040,” he said. – May 27, 2026