KUALA LUMPUR: The target for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro remains the same as it has been in the past competitions, that is to win a gold medal, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said this in response to a question posed by Manivanan Gowindasamy (PR-KAPAR) who asked on the ministry's target for the competition in addition to the ministry's responses to poor performance in the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 2014 Asian Games.
"When speaking about targets, we have to be realistic and not base it on what we want to see but what we are able to achieve.
"It is not fair to make an apple-to-apple comparison with Singapore and their achievements, when their athletes are naturalised and not Singapore-born. Our system now is more dignified," he said.
Khairy said the ministry had recently gone through the Audit Report, which outlined a number of weaknesses they would go on correcting.
"The first is the lack of common understanding in aspirations by stakeholders, the second is the lack of clear responsibility.
"The final reason is the stubbornness to change amongst the stakeholders. All these are systemic weaknesses we have suffered and will rectify," he said.
One of the means in rectifying the performances of athletes in competitions, Khairy said, was to build a taskforce to draw up a new sports modal blueprint.
"The committee will be chaired by myself and we aspire it to uplift the dignity of our national sports scene. Results however, cannot be expected to come overnight," he said.
Khairy further added that the Sports Development Act is in the process of being updated, and is expected to be finalised within the next term.