Sarawak athletes 85 per cent ready for Sukma

BY GABRIEL LIHAN AND JAMES WONG

KUCHING: Sarawakian athletes competing in the 21st Malaysia Games (Sukma) are about 85 per cent prepared for the coming Games in August.

Deputy Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development Minister Datuk Gerald Rentap Jabu said some of the teams are still overseas on special trips and training.

“We want local supporters to fully support our team and that will give extra motivation for our athletes to be able to achieve and to win gold.

“This is the aspiration of Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg and also Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development Minister Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah to make sure Sarawak end up champions,” he said. 

Rentap, who is also the Sarawak contingent chef de mission, expressed confidence in Sarawak’s success, attributing it to teamwork among athletes, coaches, and parents, supported by the entire Sarawak community.

“I’m quite confident that we will be up there, the last time that Sarawak won was 30 years ago in 1994. So, we (will) try to achieve it again.

”The closest we got to (first place) was 2016 in Sukma in Sarawak also. We lost by two medals,” he told New Sarawak Tribune in an exclusive interview recently at his office in Baitulmakmur Building II.

Rentap noted that there have been other sports that have recently achieved notable success, winning gold medals in West Malaysia and Spain. 

“Similarly, there have been positive outcomes in lesser-known sports in Paris. These achievements demonstrate our potential and the effectiveness of our athlete development programmes. 

“We want to encourage them (Sarawakian athletes), progress from local competitions to the national team, and ultimately to prestigious international events like the SEA Games, Asean Games, and the Olympics,” he said.

Rentap said that Sarawak has the potential to demonstrate the effectiveness of the training programmes, aiming to make Sarawak a sports powerhouse by 2030. 

He added that Sarawak has to have a 50 per cent success rate to be runaway champions, alongside addressing any team challenges through strategic discussions and studies.

“With that, we will try to develop a strategy and then how to improve and to pick our athletes at the right time during Sukma. We have to look into a lot of angles, in terms of their health, in terms of their performance in terms of their psychological wellbeing.

“And most of all, we have to understand that our athletes are mostly under 21-years old, a lot of them are in their teenage years, it is very delicate to manage and look after a big team like that,” he said.

Rentap shared that this year’s Sukma will feature 37 sports and 488 events, making it larger than the Olympics. 

Moreover, he expressed delight that Sarawakian athletes are competing in each of the events giving Sarawak a 50 per cent chance to win since all have qualified.