2022 AUG : Malaysia's challenge to bring home 35 gold medals begins tomorrow
27 Jul 2022 11:24am
A total of 275 national university athletes will participate in 19 of the 23 sports events with the mission to realise the target after the 37 gold achievement in 2018. - Bernama Photo
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A total of 275 national university athletes will participate in 19 of the 23 sports events with the mission to realise the target after the 37 gold achievement in 2018.
The target was set following the release of several star athletes, who are gold medal prospects, to allow them to focus on the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2022 World Pencak Silat Championship in Melaka which are taking place simultaneously.
At the same time the national contingent will be facing great challenge from the Thai contingent as they will take the opportunity to perform well on their own turf after the games was postponed since Dec 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, the host country will definitely want to defend its overall champion title which it won in the 2018 Games at Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar.
However, it is not impossible for the national contingent to meet the target set with the presence of several other high performance and seasoned athletes, among them, Welson Sim for the swimming event, Grace Wong (hammer throw), Nurul Hidayah Abdul Karim (taekwondo), C. Shahmalarani (karate) and Azreen Nabila Alias (athletics).
Malaysia’s chef de mission to the 2022 AUG, Prof Dr Mohd Fo'ad Sakdan has high hopes on his athletes though he admitted earlier that it would be difficult to meet the target.
At the 2018 AUG, Malaysia ranked third with 37 gold medals finishing behind Thailand (62) and Indonesia (44).
Over 5,000 athletes from 11 Southeast Asian countries namely Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Timor Leste, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Singapore and Brunei will compete at the AUG 20th edition. - BERNAMA
