KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia have set a target of 35 medals, without any specific colour targets, for the Asian Para Games.
The event is scheduled to take place in Hangzhou, China, from October 22 to October 28.
This year, the Malaysian contingent are composed of 113 athletes and 63 officials. The athletes are poised to partake in 104 out of the total 564 sporting events.
Notably, 54 of these athletes will be making their inaugural appearance at this prestigious event.
Paralympic Council Malaysia (PCM) vice-president and designated 2022 Games chef-de-mission K. M. Rajendran said they have taken a realistic approach to the Games this time after conducting a comprehensive analysis with the National Sports Council (NSC).
“Frankly speaking, it’s really hard for the national contingent to repeat the success at the 2018 Asian Games in winning more than 17 gold medals due to the lack of training that our athletes had due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are not going to pressure our athletes this time with a high medal target as we have looked into data provided by the NSC and several other bodies and made this realistic decision after considering all aspects.
“Even I, as chef-de-mission, am equally surprised as everyone else, but this is the best decision we can make,” said Rajendran at the Paralympic Excellence Centre in Kg Pandan today.
Rajendran added that PCM will conduct a post-mortem right after the Asian Games to establish a direction for the contingent ahead of the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
“We need to do this so that we can step up our game against the countries that have recovered from the pandemic and give them a good challenge in the Paralympics without falling short of our medal targets,” Rajendran added.
In the 2018 Asian Para Games in Jakarta, Malaysia finished 8th in the medal tally with 68 medals (17 gold, 26 silver, and 25 bronze). – October 15, 2023.