21 Sep Abd Karim: Sarawak’s challenge for Sukma gold continues
KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 21): Sarawak’s challenge for gold medals in Sukma XX is not over yet as there are three more days of competition, with many state athletes reaching semi-finals and finals, said Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
The Minister of Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development said as of today, Sarawak has won 16 gold medals and is now in sixth position in the medal standings.
“Some of the teams like swimming, tenpin bowling, athletics, and artistic gymnastics have achieved their gold medal targets.
“I believe we have chances of capturing more gold medals in the events which are ongoing and finish as a top five team in this Sukma,” he told a press conference at the Sarawak Sukma Secretariat in Berjaya Times Square Hotel here today.
He congratulated medals winners and urged those still in competition to win for not only the state but also for themselves.
“Some of the teams did not meet their gold medals target and we need to do a post-mortem to find out what went wrong, and what are our strengths and weaknesses.
“This Sukma is very challenging, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, where a lot of the training programmes were disrupted and we came into this Sukma without knowing the real strengths of other states,” he admitted.
Abdul Karim said Johor is doing very well and leading the gold medals challenge, while Sabah has shown much improvement and occupying a better position than Sarawak.
“In previous Sukma, they were always behind us but in this Sukma you can see that they are now ahead of us in terms of medals,” he said.
On the emergence of new star athletes such as Lavinia Kho in tenpin bowling and diver Elvis Priestly Clement, Abdul Karim said it was the result of the good development programmes implemented by the state government and the state sports associations involved.
Also present at the press conference were Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development Deputy Minister Dato Gerald Rentap Jabu, permanent secretary Nancy Jolhi, and Sarawak Sports Corporation CEO Morshidi Fredrick.
Source : Borneo Post Online