PHNOM PENH, June 5 — Four Malaysian athletes have been allowed to participate in the ongoing 2023 Asean Para Games (APG) through the consolidation of the events at the biennial Games here.
Malaysian chef-de-mission (CDM) to the 2023 Cambodia APG Noor Syahieda Mat Shah confirmed this today after discussions with all the countries involved on Saturday (June 3) to determine whether the events would still take place through combining the classes or ensuring sufficient participants.
“During the Para Athletics Team Managers’ meeting on June 3, countries like Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam had raised the same issue because most of their athletes could not take part because their events were not listed.
“… and as a result of the discussion, it was decided to allow all athletes to compete according to the combined events,” he said in a statement today.
The four national para-athletes involved are Mohamad Aliff Mohamad Awi in shot put F20 (intellectual impairment); Ahmad Fizzi Rosni (100-metre (m)/ T36/37 – cerebral palsy); Badrul Hisam Musa (shot put/discus/javelin T12 – intellectual impairment); and Taufik Hidayat Nasirdin (shot put/discus F34 – cerebral palsy).
Earlier, Mohamad Aliff bagged gold after hurling the shot put to a distance of 13.86m in the F20 category while Ahmad Fizzi clinched silver in the 100m T36/T37 category at the Morodok Techo National Stadium today.
Badrul Hisam, meanwhile, will be in action tomorrow while Taufik Hidayat’s schedule will be announced later.
On Sunday (June 4), a news portal reported that the four national athletes were mere ‘passengers’ as they could not participate in any events due to the lack of participation from other countries.
— Bernama
