More USPTN junior cycling camps soon

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FUTURE CHAMPS: The participants of the ongoing USPTN-MSNS cycling camp at Yayasan Sarawak headquarters of Jalan Sultan Tengah in jovial mood after their first outing at State Stadium, Petra Jaya yesterday.

KUCHING: Sarawak’s High Performance Sports Unit (USPTN) together with Sarawak State Sports Council (MSNS) will soon introduce junior cycling camps in all divisions with the aim to promote cycling among school children.

USPTN acting head, Mohd Faizal Ibrahim told The Borneo Post yesterday that the camps are also aimed to scout for talents and to groom riders for the 2016 Malaysia Games (Sukma) in Sarawak.

“We are having it in Kuching for the first time and will extend it to other divisions so that more can take part,” he said while announcing that the ongoing five-day camp at Yayasan Sarawak headquarters of Jalan Sultan Tengah was the first of the its kind held locally.

A total of 40 lower secondary students aged 16 and below from Kuching, Sematan, Sri Aman, Bintulu and Mukah are taking part in the camp headed by MSNS’ cycling chief coach, Dzulkaflee Hassan.

“It is important for us to start with them at an early age because it is a long term development programme and it involves a lot of hard work to groom them into good riders,” said Faizal on the programme’s target group.

According to him, in China cycling was introduced to primary school students to inculcate interest among them and to give potential talents a
good head start before they start joining vigorous training programmes.

“For the coming 2016 Sukma we are expecting at least five gold medals from cycling and therefore it is important for us to start working now when the potential talents are still young,” he enthused.

Meanwhile, Dzulkaflee expressed optimism most of the participants will be keen to continue taking up cycling as their favourite sports and there are a few good potential riders among the lot.

“What they will learning from the camp are the basics which will create their awareness on the sports and on how they can progress to become good riders in the future,” the coach said.