CDM sorry Sarawak fail to meet 44-gold target

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Sarawak CDM Dato Gerald Rentap Jabu (second left) gives the thumbs up to star bowlers Lavinia Kho (right) and Nur Hazirah.

KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 25): Sarawak contingent’s chef-de-mission (CDM) Dato Gerald Rentap Jabu has apologised for their failure to reach the 44-gold medal target at the 20th Sukma held here from Sept 16 to 24.

“We are sorry not to have achieved our target but we kept our target to be in the top five,” said the Deputy Minister of Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development when contacted on Sunday.

Sarawak captured a total of 32 gold, 43 silver and 52 bronze medals to finish fourth overall behind Johor (77-52-43), Terengganu (64-49-56) and FT Kuala Lumpur (55-68-64) but ahead of Selangor (31-55-44), Sabah (30-29-39) and Penang (30-28-42).

“Firstly, I must congratulate all the medal winners during the Sukma XX MSN 2020. In any sport there can only be one winner so to those who did not made it, better luck next time.

“There were many challenges and obstacles for us especially after the Covid-19 pandemic but we stuck as a team, a family to persevere and gave it all.

“I congratulate our Deputy CDM (Nancy Jolhi), the ACDMs, SSC CEO Morshidi Fredrick who is also Sarawak State Sports Council director, SSC and MSNS officers, athletes, team managers, coaches, support teams, cheer squads, the media, parents and most of all supporters of Sarawak Sukma team. “Agi Idup Agi Ngeleban, sik mok kalah (‘live and fight, don’t want to lose’),’ Gerald added.

Sarawak took part in 31 sports namely archery, athletics, aquatics (swimming and diving), badminton, tenpin bowling, boxing, basketball, volleyball (beach and indoor), canoeing, cricket, cycling, e-sports, football, golf, gymnastics (artistic and rhythmic), hockey, judo, karate, lawnbowls, muay, netball, pencak silat, petanque, rugby, sailing, shooting, squash, sepaktakraw, tennis, weightlifting and wushu.

Teams were also sent for kabbadi and silambam which were organised as demonstration events.

Sarawak star archer Joey Tan.

The top performing teams were from tenpin bowling (4 gold, 2 silver, 4 bronze) and archery (4-1-1). Sarawak was the best performing team in both sports at the games.

The athletics team collected five gold, four silver and six bronze while the swimmers clinched five gold, nine silver and seven bronze. The young men’s diving team was commendable for winning two gold, three silver and one bronze.

Teams which did well enough to pick up two gold medals each were from boxing, muay and pencak silat. The squash, tennis, shooting, golf and indoor volleyball teams also collected one gold each.

“We will do a post-mortem as per the Minister’s request and will work to improve for the next games in Johor in 2024,” the CDM added.