SEPANG, Aug 14 — The Road to Gold (RTG) programme must be given adequate time to run its course for Malaysia to succeed in its mission to bag the first Olympic gold medal, opined national track cycling coach John Beasley.
He said the programme must be given the chance to continue uninterrupted and emphasised it possibly needs at least another Olympic cycle to fully evaluate its effectiveness.
“This is an elite programme, understand that it’s going to take time to build that gold medal performance.
“Give Malaysia that privilege to look after their best of the best, and I’ll guarantee it will reward you tenfold. But if you stop it, we start at the beginning all over again,” he said, pointing out that stopping and starting initiatives in the past has stifled progress.
He said this when met after returning with the Malaysian contingent from the Paris Olympics at Kuala Lumpur International Airport here yesterday.
The Australian said the RTG programme has so far succeeded in fulfilling the athletes needs in terms of equipment or emotional backing, and he believes if continued, it is not a matter of “if” Malaysia will manage to bring home a gold medal, it is just a matter of “when”.
“I think you can see what we started already. Even though we didn’t bring any gold, silver or bronze medals this time, you saw the performance. There were some really good performances at this game, so please don’t take that away from the athletes and the RTG programme,” he said.
However, he said, moving forward, the programme should only be made available to top athletes and be free of political interference to ensure it runs as intended.
The RTG programme was introduced by the Youth and Sports Ministry (KBS) last year to coordinate efforts towards an Olympic gold medal.
It has yet to bear fruit as the national contingent did not secure gold medals at the Paris Olympics.
Malaysia won two bronze medals through men’s singles shuttler Lee Zii Jia and men’s doubles shuttlers Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik.
— Bernama
