National Contingent Surpasses Gold Medal Target At SEA Games - NSC

SINGAPORE, June 16 (Bernama) -- The national contingent's feat of collecting 60 gold medals at the 28th SEA Games today not only surpasses the achievements at the Myanmar SEA Games two years ago, but also exceeds the target of 48 golds set by the National Sports Council (NSC) this time.

Their achievements also exceeded the personal target of 50 gold medals set by chef de mission Datuk Seri Mohamad Norza Zakaria.

The 60th gold medal was picked up by the national women's basketball team after beating Vietnam 82-50 in the finals held at the OCBC Arena today.

Malaysia currently sits in fourth place, accumulating a total of 179 medals - 60 gold, 53 silver, and 66 bronze.

NSC director-general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail said that the success proves that athletes managed to achieve the targets laid by NSC although they were not made public prior to this.

"We set the target of 56 per cent of the 329 events competed which was a total of 184 medals overall," he told reporters today.

He said the breakdown of the medal target was 48 gold, 44 silver, and 92 bronze medals.

Explaining the confusion pertaining to the number of events contested by the national contingent this time, Ahmad Shapawi said the NSC had initially registered for 335 events, but was forced to drop six events at the last minute due to certain reasons.

He said the six comprised two swimming events, three sailing events and one athletics.

Ahmad Shapawi said the NSC changed its approach in setting the target compared to the past, to fine-tune the performance of each athlete, regardless of whether they were rookie or elite athletes.

He said the goals set by NSC this time was based on an overall assessment of the country's past SEA Games performances since 2005.

"With assessment based on the average, we can monitor the performance of rookie athletes who use the SEA Games as a platform for their career," he said.

Ahmad Shapawi said the average target rate for the SEA Games and other sporting events would vary from time to time based on the performance of the athletes, to create more realistic goals.

-- BERNAMA