Malaysia could only manage a seventh-place finish with 34 gold, 45 silver, and 97 bronze, its worst in the history of the Games since 1959, and failed to achieve the set target of 40-37-64.
Vietnam retained the title of overall champion with 136-105-118 while hosts Cambodia recorded their best showing with a fourth-place finish of 81-74-127. Even before the Games, Malaysia already lost 18 gold, 16 silver, and 30 bronze as the sports and events that were contested in Vietnam were not included, or reduced in the Cambodia Games. Sports that were not popular in Malaysia like kun bokator, kun khmer, arnis, vovinam, ouk chaktrang, and xianqi chess, offered a total of 93 gold medals. From the start, we only had a chance to win 59 percent of the gold medals as we participated in 340 events out of a total of 579.
Source:https://en.wikipedia.org
The SEA Games has turned into a circus of sorts - with participating countries not only including their respective traditional sports but for a good measure, foreigners were given instant citizenship. Cambodia had 13 “foreign” cricketers (from the Indian sub-continent) to win the gold. Others like the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, and Indonesia also had naturalised players.
National sports associations need to conduct institutional reforms so that sports in the country could progress. Malaysia Swimming should focus on new talent development as it was among the sports that offered a total of 39 in Cambodia.
Out of the 427 (63 percent) Under 23 athletes, 222 managed podium finishes with a haul of 18 gold, 21 silver, and 66 bronze medals. The Minister, Hannah Yeoh said, “This is our strategy for the 2025 SEA Games in Thailand and 2027 in Malaysia, we are confident that our juniors can shine.” She also said that sports development funds from Sports Toto had also dropped to around a third of what they were 10 years ago.
Besides funds and foreigners, shouldn’t the SEA Games only have sports that are included for the Olympics? That way we are developing better athletes for the world stage. Otherwise, we will have the “jaguh kampong” mentality and fail to realise our potential for the global stage. And if any country or association is able to persuade the Olympic Council on a sport like sepak takraw, so be it! Meanwhile, we develop athletes in all those events that are included in the Olympics.
References:
M’sian sports declined under political instability – minister, Malaysiakini, 19 May 2023
Comment: Farce at SEA Games can never be snuffed out, R Nadeswaran, Malaysiakini,
20 May 2023
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