The National Sports Council (NSC) had to reduce the training allowance of national athletes, after the action of dropping 144 athletes from the national training program.
NSC director-general Datuk Ahmad Shapawi Ismail stressed that the action had to be taken as the country gave more priority to efforts to restore the economy after COVID-19 apart from the flood incidents that hit several states at this time.
National sprinter, Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli, is among the big names who were dropped despite suffering a knee ligament injury since 2020.
She is one of Malaysia’s best female runners with an appearance at the Rio 2017 Olympics as well as a silver medal at the 2017 SEA Games.
The remaining 143 national athletes either decide to retire, continue their studies or find employment.
That is the reality of their lives affected after MSN only selected 293 athletes involving normal and paralympic due to lack of budget.
MSN is also implementing a new rate of training allowance.
After this, the silver and bronze medal winners of the SEA Games will receive RM800 while gold, RM2,000.
For the Commonwealth and Asian Games, the gold winner will receive RM4,500 while the silver RM4,000 and the bronze RM3,500.
The Olympic gold medalist will receive an allowance of RM7,500 while the silver RM7,000 and the bronze RM6,500.
-Astro Arena
