ALOR SETAR: The Sports Ministry wants to see the state of Kedah produce even more squash stars following the success of four athletes from the state who emerged victorious at the 2018 British Junior Open Squash Championship last month.
Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin stated that the building of a new squash training center at the Sultan Abdul Halim Stadium at a cost of RM7.6 million is also a sign that the ministry acknowledges the success of the four squash athletes.
Khairy hopes that the new training center will be able to produce more junior squash players from Kedah, in line with its potential in being a state of sporting excellence.
He added that the training center is expected to be completed by early next year with facilities including eight courts, media area and an office.
"Even though planning had been carried out much earlier, however I can now say that this training center is a gift and an acknowledgement for the state of Kedah.
"We hope that with this training center, it will be able to be fully utilised as best as possible in line with the Ministry’s aspirations of seeing more junior athletes coming up through the ranks for squash,” he said during a press conference after the ground breaking ceremony for the training center here earlier today.
The ceremony was officiated by Kedah Menteri Besar, Datuk Seri Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah.
With the building of the training center, the Kedah state sports council expects to increase the intake of budding, young, junior athletes from 58 under the current development programme to 120.
Recently, four young squash athletes from Kedah, namely K. Sehveetrraa (Under-13 category), sisters Aira and Aifa Azman (Under-15 and Under-17 respectively), along with S. Sivasangari (Under-19) won their respective age-group categories at the British Junior Open Squash Championship.
At the same time, Khairy hopes that the young squash athletes from Kedah will be able to fulfil their potential and follow in the footsteps of Malaysian squash queen Nicol David who was world No 1 for a record 108 consecutive months from August 2006 to September 2015.
“In terms of female athletes we are not lagging behind, in fact we are in the same league with other countries who excel in the sport such as Egypt, though we are only slightly behind in terms of developing men’s squash which needs to be improved and enhanced.
"Where the Sports Ministry is concerned, we will be working hard towards building even more sports facilities throughout the country to realise the goal and ambition of producing even more junior athletes with potential,” he said.
In other developments, Khairy appealed to the supporters of the Red Eagles not to get emotional over the issue of building a new football stadium in Kedah which was proposed by the state government.
"I know the old stadium has sentimental value, but there is really no need to get emotional over it if the state government wants to build a new one.
"This is because what’s important is we want to see development and betterment in the level of football,” he said, adding that details on the building of a new stadium will be made known sometime in the future.
Last year, the state government proposed the building of a new football stadium on the site of the existing stadium which was built in 1962, however the proposal has received objections from football fans if the existing stadium is to be demolished.