KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 — The Youth and Sports Ministry (KBS) aims to ensure that talent development is not limited to just one sport, especially if they are found to have less potential to represent the national team in that particular sport.
Its minister Hannah Yeoh said they will assist in transferring the talent to another sport to ensure the efforts of parents, who send their children to be active in a particular sport, are not wasted.
"Sports require athletes to start training at an early age, with rhythmic gymnastics being one of them, but not all children will grow up to represent Malaysia.
"I do not want the initial investments made by the parents to go to waste when the children realise they are that good in that particular sport,” she said after officiating the launch of a new branch of the Rhythmic Excellence Academy yesterday.
Yeoh also praised the positive steps implemented between the Rythmic Excellence Academy, founded by Malaysian Gymnastics Federation vice-president Petrina Low, and the diving academy in Bukit Jalil in collaboration with former national diver Datuk Leong Mun Yee.
"Such collaboration is what we want to see, where athletes can switch to another sport,” she said, adding that the National Sports Council, together with the coaches, are studying ways to implement the initiative.
She said that for example, former national men's singles badminton ace Datuk Lee Chong Wei initially took up basketball while national wushu queen Tan Cheong Min played badminton first.
— Bernama
