PUTRAJAYA – The Ministry of Youth and Sports (KBS) has decided to not give any reward through the Sports Victory Prize Scheme Incentive (SHAKAM) to national shot put Paralympic athletic, Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli.
However, its Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Faizal Azumu said that some quarters are interested in offering other rewards to Ziyad.
“I will contact Ziyad and discuss with him on the rewards. It is not related to any government financial allocation as certain quarters would like to offer the rewards to him over his missed opportunity.
“Nevertheless, it would not be nice for me to announce the reward unless Ziyad wishes to do it himself as I have yet to tell him,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Faizal also hoped that the incident that happened on Ziyad should be turned into a lesson for all coaches and athletes.
“Let’s not see that as a punishment. To me, it was an unfortunate event.
“We cannot prove that they have made a mistake if we want to punish them. They were said to have arrived right on time but failed to prove it. It was an undesirable event for Ziyad and the country,” he said.
Following that, all national coaches and athletes need to understand and carry their responsibility properly while facing any competition or championship.
“What happened should be a lesson so that it would not repeat in the future.
“We have three main championships next year, namely the South East Asea (SEA) Games, Asia Games and the Commonwealth Games. We need to ensure that all officers, including Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail (Director-General of National Sports Council), coaches and athletes understand their responsibility before going to these major championships so that similar event would not happen again,” he said.
When asked about the penalty for Ziyad and his coach, Mohd Faizol Harun, the minister said that the duo, including all Malaysians have received a huge punishment after the shot put champion could not bring home the gold medal from the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games last August.
“I have thought about this in detail after getting the report and we discussed about it for almost two months. I found that they; Ziyad, the coach, team and the people have received their punishment after two world record throws were disqualified. The athlete could bring back the gold medal. That, to me, is the biggest punishment for an athlete.
“For example, if we punish the coach, suspend him from training the athletes, but, the same coach had polished the talents in Ziyad and he brought us the gold medal from Rio.
“If we stop him from coaching, Ziyad would lose a coach. We need to learn from our mistakes and we need to take serious note. This is a lesson to all of us, he said.
Ziyad was disqualified after breaking the world record twice as he and two other athletes were supposedly late to enter the call room.
According to the World Para Athletics Rule 5.5 – ‘Failure to Report to the Call Room’ which states that in case athletes are not present in the call room at the relevant time as published in the Call Room schedule they will be shown in the results as DNS (Did Not Start). -MalaysiaGazette
