KUALA LUMPUR – The men’s national hockey team’s recent poor performance at the Hangzhou Asian Games has raised concerns about their inclusion in the ongoing Road to Gold (RTG) programme ahead of next year’s Paris Olympics.
RTG is an elite athlete preparation programme developed by the Youth and Sports Ministry with the goal of enabling top-tier athletes to compete for gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics, 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and other major international competitions by providing them with additional support.
Malaysia hockey team manager Datuk Mirnawan Nawawi believes that the Speedy Tigers deserve a chance to remain in the programme, as their journey to the Olympics is far from over.
“I personally hope that the RTG committee will give us a chance to stay in this programme, at least until the Olympic qualifiers are over.
“Our qualification hopes are not yet over, and we still have another chance to prove ourselves in the Olympic qualifiers.”
“I hope the committee doesn’t take drastic action to remove us from the programme due to the Asian Games results.
“I hope they give us another chance because the programme is critical for our athletes to improve their performance and continue their quest to qualify for the Olympics,” Mirnawan said today at a press conference at the national hockey stadium.
Mirnawan also said that it is common for favourite teams in a tournament to stumble, and he urges Malaysian hockey fans to focus on the positives.
“Our performance in the Asian Games was not as expected, and I’m not going to deny that we did not meet our target.
“As tournament favourites, the pressure to perform caused us to stumble. This is a common occurrence, as even Australia failed to win gold in the Sydney Olympics despite being the favourites.
“What matters most for us in this tournament is what we have learned as a team. We humbly request all the hockey fans in Malaysia to continue supporting and trusting our process,” Mirnawan added.
Meanwhile, head coach Arul Selvaraj said that his team still has the hunger and desire to win and pledges to train his players to improve their set pieces.
“The team has a winning mentality, and it’s absurd for the public to criticise them on social media for not playing for the badge. We lost because of a few individual errors, and we can’t blame the team’s mentality and hard work.
“We can’t label them as failures as a whole just because of this one bad tournament. Let’s not forget that these were the players who created history at the Asian Champions Trophy.
“Our scoring rate through penalty corners was disappointing. In training, we are good, but in the big matches, we are unable to execute our chances. This is bad, and we are working to improve it,” Arul said.
Malaysia finished sixth in the Asian Games and missed out on a direct Olympic qualification slot after their 5-2 defeat to Pakistan at the Gongshu Canal Sports Park hockey stadium on October 6.
Malaysia’s only hope now centres on the FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers scheduled to take place from January 15 to 21 in Oman/Spain.
The Speedy Tigers are currently ranked 10th in the FIH world rankings with 2,041.37 points.
Their best finish in the Asian Games came in the 2018 edition in Jakarta and Palembang, where they won the silver medal. – October 9, 2023