KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 — Work to prepare the venues for the 20th Malaysia Games (Sukma) in Kuala Lumpur from Sept 16-24 is 95 per cent complete, says National Sports Council (NSC) deputy director-general (sports development sector) Suhardi Alias.
He said only minor works were left to be done with 27 days to go before the Games.
“Most of the venues are owned by the NSC and the state governments. So, it does not involve a lot of expenses.
“We want to make sure that this time, Sukma is executed with minimal expenditure, so this will boost the interest of states to organise Sukma,” he said when met at the Sukma team sports draw ceremony at NSC, today.
Most of the venues for the 20th edition of Sukma involve four zones around the Klang Valley – Kuala Lumpur, Bangi (including Nilai and Putrajaya), Bukit Jalil and Shah Alam – while only sailing will be held at the National Yacht Training Centre in Langkawi.
According to the current schedule, the opening and closing ceremonies will be held at the Tun Abdul Razak Chancellor Hall at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Bangi on Sept 17 and 24 respectively.
Meanwhile, Terengganu State NSC director Ahmad Shahrizal Yahaya said that about 90 per cent of the state’s contingent was confident of defending the overall championship won when Sukma was last organised in Perak in 2018.
“We are still determining our medal target and we expect our golds to come from cycling, where Terengganu is known as the land of cyclists, as well as sailing and judo,” he said.
He also explained that the contingent had potentially lost three golds through the women’s 100m, 200m and 4x100m events as sprint queen Azreen Nabila Ali is not eligible to take part in this edition because she had participated in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Terengganu also emerged as Sukma overall champions in the 2008 edition in Kuala Terengganu, Melaka (2010), Pahang (2011) and Kuala Lumpur (2012)
— Bernama
