Three sports under ‘Road to Rio’ programme may be dropped — Khairy

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KUALA LUMPUR: It might be the end of the road for at least three types of sport under the ‘Road to Rio’ programme, hints Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

Stating that all parties and associations needed to be realistic about the achievement of their athletes, he said the ministry wanted to focus only on medal prospective sports at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.

“The ‘Road to Rio’ programme will be reviewed based on the achievements of athletes at the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games recently, as the Olympics is just two years away, and not all sports could deliver medals.

“So, I need to select and prioritise medal prospective sports only,” he told reporters after participating in the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2014 at the Dataran Merdeka here yesterday.

He said, before the start of the Commonwealth Games in July in Scotland and the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, five sports were shortlisted from 11 under the ‘Road to Rio’ programme.

Nonetheless, after the disappointing performance of some sports at the Asian Games in September, Khairy said two to three sports were in danger of being dropped from the programme.

It was learnt, the earlier 11 sports under the ‘Road to Rio’ programme were aquatics, weightlifting, cycling, badminton, gymnastics, men’s hockey, fencing, archery, shooting, athletics and sailing.

“After the Asian Games, two to three sports are in danger of being delisted.

This means, I am not very impressed with their achievements. I do not want to say which sports will be dropped, as yet.  “I want to hear what their (sport associations) plan is, if they set targets which are not realistic as even the people will also be able to evaluate before I take them out of the programme,” said Khairy.

Elaborating on government allocations which emphasised more on the development of sports, as well as focus on six core sports, he said allocations for 20 types of other sport would not be overlooked.

“Allocations for 20 other sports will be there, do not worry, they will be involved in the development process. “ — Bernama