Only State govt to decide on Sukma events

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KUCHING: Only the State government can make any changes to the events that will be competed at Sukma XVIII in Sarawak next year.

Sarawak State Sports Council (MSNS) acting director Lucas Kalang Laeng stated that any change will only involve five optional sports out of the 24 events while 19 others are compulsory sports.

“The state government has already approved 24 sports that will be competed in Sukma XVIII.

“However, if there is any sports association which wants to submit other sports, it can appeal to the state government,” he said.

According to Lucas, a special committee has been set up to assess the potential of the optional sport which has made an appeal.

He said muaythai has already applied to be one of the optional events in the 2016 Sukma.

The 19 compulsory sports are aquatics (swimming/diving), archery, shooting, athletics, silat, taekwondo, wushu, badminton, cycling, weightlifting, football, lawn bowls, hockey (men/women), karate, sepak takraw, optimist sailing, squash and artistic gymnastics.

The five optional sports are tennis, golf, petanque, indoor volleyball/beach volleyball and boxing.

Lucas said the selection of the sports events takes into priority the potential of it not only winning gold medals but also whether it would give any advantage to other states.

“We do not want the selected sports events to give any advantage to other state contingents especially from Terengganu, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.

“As such, we are very careful in selecting the sports events to be competed, placing priority on events that are advantageous to Sarawak,” he added.

Sukma XVIII will be held in Kuching, Sibu and Miri from July 22-31 next year.

Meanwhile, Lucas said the preparations of Sukma XVIII teams have been going on smoothly, with the athletes undergoing the first phase of training from March to July.

It will be followed by the second phase from August to March next year while the final phase will be conducted from April until Sukma XVIII in July.