Foul!

UPDATE 1.15am: Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) president Karim Ibrahim, after reading this article, had in a WhatsApp message at 1.13am, said: "MAF will include Lee in the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games." That reply itself is a record - exactly five minutes after this posting was published! --- ORIGINAL POST National high jumper Lee Hup Wei  (pic) claimed  his second gold medal in the New South Wales Open Athletics Championships in Sydney on Feb 4. The 30-year-old and his teammate Nauraj Singh Randhawa both cleared 2.24m but Hup Wei was awarded the gold on count back. Hup Wei's effort was 4cm short of his personal best of 2.28m, his gold-medal winning mark at the ACT Championships in Canberra last month. Read the full article here . Immediately after Hup Wei achieved his personal best of 2.28m, I received this message from a sports official. "Maybe you can write about his (Hup Wei's) recent result (The) athletics federation...

UPDATE (6.42pm):  The Malaysia Athletics Federation (MAF) is unaware of an international New Year run in city. MAF president Datuk Karim Ibrahim said: "We had a meeting with KSU (Youth and Sports Ministry's chief secretary), Sports Commissioner and even a representative from police last week and it was decided that all runs, especially international runs, must be sanctioned by the state association and this was agreed by all parties." "No requests were made to us for an international run on New Year's day. We have been tasked to come up with the guidelines and held a meeting today." Karim also said it was wrong for race organisers to use the name of government agencies or any other third party to organise events, especially so when money is collected. --- ORIGINAL ARTICLE The above picture is a screen grab from the Royal Malaysian Police twitter account.  Utusan Malaysia reported:  Beberapa jalan utama di sekitar ibu negara akan ditut...

As published in Sunday Mail today Being Frank By Frankie D’Cruz MALAYSIA’S newest sporting hero, sprinter Badrul Hisyam Abdul Manap, 18, should be a household name. Sadly, he isn’t so. Certain media don’t even get the spelling of his name right. That’s disappointing. Badrul who clocked 10.29s to break Watson Nyambek’s 17-year national 100m record by one-tenth of a second last Monday is one of the best stories this year. Sadly, his story has not gripped the nation. That’s depressing. The schoolboy’s spectacular achievement is one of the defining moments of Malaysian athletics, yet it has been virtually ignored by the authorities including the Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) that has had a series of poor stories in recent years. The education and youth and sports ministries also failed to make Badrul, a young inspiring Malaysian, top news. Here’s the thing: at a time when the authorities are struggling to encourage the young to excel in sports...

lag·gard ˈlagərd / noun plural noun: laggards   1 . a person who makes slow progress and falls behind others. That was the word published on the backpage of The Malay Mail today. It is regarding chef de mission Tun Ahmad Sarji's findings at the 2012 Olympics in Beijing. Meanwhile, The Malay Mail sports editor Tony Mariadass had this to say: The National Sports Council (NSC), who are grooming athletes through their Pelapis (back-up) programme, have requested Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) to include nine of their interns under category B. But this is a peculiar situation because MAF, as the governing body of athletics, should overseeing development as they know the performance of the athletes well.   NSC should engage MAF fully in their programme or have the body run the programme for them because, after all, they are the experts.   In fact, several sports associations have given up development because NSC have taken over the role. This ...

Former national chief coach Harun Rasheed ( pic ) has been banned for 10 years by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) while six national sprinters who skipped doping tests in 2011 were given suspensions ranging from 18 months to two years. Last Friday's decision by CAS overturned the one-year ban handed out by the Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) to Harun for telling the six athletes to skip the out-of-competition dope tests at the National Sports Institute on May 24, 2011. Harun's ban is backdated to Sept 12, 2011 when the MAF first handed out its verdict, which the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) disagreed with and appealed to CAS for a tougher punishment. Read NST Devinder Singh's report here . HD says: Hope this serves as a good lesson.