KUALA LUMPUR, July 11 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has high hopes on its badminton, archery and cycling teams in the 2008 Beijing Olympics based on their good performances, said Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
He said badminton singles player Lee Chong Wei was ranked second in the world while doubles pair Choong Tan Fook and Lee Wan Wah were ranked fourth.
The archery team, he said, was ranked seventh in the world and had given encouraging performances by coming in second at world championships in France and Turkey recently.
"For cycling, individual and team cyclists had taken fourth place in the 200m Sprint event in Germany recently," Ismail Sabri said in reply to an original question by Razali Ismail (BN-Muar) on the medals target for the 2008 Olympics Games.
Ismail Sabri, however, said all individual athletes and teams would strive to be on the winners' podium irrespective of the colour of the medal.
Replying to a supplementary question by Razali on the method of picking athletes to compete as it should be based on bringing glory to the nation and not for the RM1 million incentive (for a gold medal), Ismail Sabri said the public should not doubt the spirits of the athletes.
"We should not view that the RM1 million is to buy our athletes. All this while people have been saying the welfare of our athletes had not been looked into. Take for example, the late Mokhtar Dahari who could only afford a motorcycle.
"When his motorcycle was stolen, we appealed for donations through the newspapers to buy him a new one. That was how we appreciated our sportsmen once upon a time," he said.
Ismail Sabri said that looking after the welfare of athletes was very important in wanting them to win in competitions.
The government recently announced an incentive of RM1 million for winning a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, RM300,000 for a silver and RM100,000 for a bronze.
-- BERNAMA
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