KUALA LUMPUR: Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria (pix) said today that the upcoming Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games from Sept 23 to Oct 8 will be a projection of Malaysian athletes’ performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
He said this more so for sports like badminton and track cycling, where Asian standards are close to world-class.
Norza said as the Asiad this time is being held during the Olympics qualification period, after being postponed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the athletes, especially those under the Road to Gold (RTG) programme will strive to justify the government’s spending on them and remaining in the programme.
“This will be a mirror, or benchmark of what will happen in the Olympics, I do think that. For badminton, there’s not much difference between Asian Games and Olympics, except for the inclusion of Denmark in the latter,” he said in a press conference after handing over the letters of selection to athletes and officials for the Asiad.
For hockey, Mohamad Norza believes that Hangzhou 2022, based on the draw, is a good opportunity to earn an Olympic ticket by winning the gold medal, which will expand the size of the national contingent for Paris 2024.
“When we have a larger contingent, we will get more recognition from the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in terms of participation. So there’s a lot of important milestones, or game-changers and the Asian Games will be the platform for us to look at what will happen in Paris 2024,” he said.
Mohamad Norza reiterated that the Asian Games is not for exposure, but a platform for selected top-performing athletes to challenge the best in the continent.
Based on the latest update, 289 athletes and 145 officials will be representing Malaysia at the Hangzhou 2022.
Malaysia will participate in 22 of the 40 sports to be contested, including diving, badminton, cycling, equestrian, gymnastics, hockey, karate, archery, squash, athletics, taekwondo, esports, boxing and wushu. -Bernama
