KUCHING: Sports associations for people with disabilities (OKU) should plan ways to boost and maintain the competitive spirit and resilience of OKU athletes, such as through organising small-scale local competitions.
Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah noted that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, large-scale competitions could not be held.
“Competitions are very important. Usually, before we send our athletes to the Malaysia Para Games (Para Sukma), we would send them to enter competitions so they can gain exposure.
“At the same time, they would be able to gain a better understanding of their performance,” she said when officiating at the Para Sukma, National Deaf Games (Sopma), and Special Olympics Sarawak strategic planning workshop at a hotel here today.
She said by participating in competitions, athletes could keep themselves in tip-top condition with regard to physical and psychological aspects.
She said Sarawak had emerged as champion of Para Sukma a total of 13 times and hoped the team would be able to maintain this winning streak.
“We also hope to be champion in the National Deaf Games. So far, the highest place we have achieved is third place in 2016,” she said, also expressing her hope that Sarawak would continue to excel at the Special Olympic Games as well.
“We want Sarawak to be a powerhouse for OKU sports — not only at the state level or national level, but at the international level too,” said Fatimah.
Noting that Para Sukma had been postponed to 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, she said the team therefore had two more years to prepare and organise new strategies.
She said some OKU athletes would no longer be able to qualify to participate in Para Sukma 2022 as they would have surpassed the age restriction of 40 by then.
“However, those who would not be able to compete can still contribute in other ways such as coaching,” she said.
She said the strategic planning for OKU sports associations would involve coaches, athletes, and talent identification for new athletes.
She added that classification of OKU athletes should also be focused on.
“We have trained our own classifiers to classify our OKU athletes correctly right from the start and train accordingly so that when the competition arrives, there will be no disqualifications based on wrong classification.”
Fatimah emphasised that Sarawak regarded sports for OKU as an important way of ensuring that OKU were included in the society.
“We give opportunities to those with potential and interest in sports to venture into sports professionally and produce results for the individual and the state as a whole,” she said.
