KUALA LUMPUR, 17 Sept 2017:
The national contingent’s mission to achieve the target of 103 gold medals set by the Youth and Sports Ministry (KBS) at the 2017 Kuala Lumpur Asean Para Games (KL2017) starts today.
For the national para athletes, they will certainly want to prove that they too could be outstanding – just like the normal athletes who had competed in the 29th SEA Games which concluded on Aug 30 with a tally of 145 gold medals to emerge as overall champion.
Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin also challenged the national contingent to the Asean Para Games to exceed the target of 103 gold medals achieved by the national contingent to the SEA Games.
Conceding the competition would certainly be stiff to emerge as overall champion, Khairy said the national athletes are highly spirited to give their best performance for sports fans in the country.
The local sports fans will certainly place their focus on two world champions – Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli and Abdul Latif Romly as well as the gold medalist at the Rio Paralympic Games Mohamad Ridzuan Mohamad Puzi in athletic events – besides the emergence of Singapore’s swimming athlete Yip Pin Xiu, who also won the gold medal at the Rio Paralympic Games.
Prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is scheduled to officially open the meet at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium which has a capacity of more than 85,000 spectators.
The ninth edition of the games will be held from today until 23 with 1,421 athletes and 711 officials from 11 Southeast Asian countries – Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam – participating and competing in 368 events from 16 sports.
– Bernama