Asian Games: KJ backs no gold medal target, questions why minister not the one announcing it

SHAH ALAM - Former youth and sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin describes the option taken by 2022 Asian Games Chef de Mission Datuk Chong Kim Fatt to only announce the target for the national contingent to deliver 27 medals from 13 sports as a judgement call.

He said although the previous practice was to announce the target for the gold medal, Chong had stated that the decision to only announce the overall target was to avoid putting pressure on the athletes.

“I think this is a judgement call from time to time by the officials. As a former minister, I too have made a similar decision,” he said in the ‘Keluar Sekejap’ podcast.

He however questioned why the announcement was not made by the minister in charge instead.

“Through my observation, the target was announced by Chong.

“When I was the minister, I was the one who made the announcement.

“This is a different school of thought, there are ministers who do not want to be blamed, so they asked the Chef de Mission to make the target announcement.

“There is a buffer. It means that there is no statement saying that the minister was the one announcing the target,” he said.

Khairy added that there were ministers who preferred a hands-off approach and those who wanted plausible deniability by not making the announcement and letting others do it.

However, he said he was more of a minister who wanted to take ownership and prepared to be criticised for the decisions he made.

“I am more towards wanting to take ownership because I have to take care of the dressing room. I am the manager of the whole Malaysian sports ecosystem. It is a different approach.

“There are those who take the bull by its horn I suppose and will be criticised and if we succeeded, nothing happens, but when things go bad as in 2014 (Incheon Asian Games), I received criticisms, but it’s okay, I took responsibility for it,” he said.