KUALA LUMPUR: The move by the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) to tighten the qualifying criterion for the Asian Games in Indonesia is expected to save the government up to 40 per cent in costs and expenditure.
The percentage is based on early prediction after two days of meetings for the selection committee involving 28 sports.
From the first filtration process, 139 athletes manage to place themselves in category A for the Asian continent’s largest sporting meet where the cost is covered fully while 148 athletes are in category B – where the cost is borne by the respective sports associations.
The smaller number of athletes in category A follows OCM’s decision to tighten the criterion where athletes need to be ranked in the top four compared to the previous requirement of being in the top six.
Among the big names who have been affected by such a drastic move is national track cyclist Fatehah Mustapha, who has become the first athlete from the Podium Programme to be dropped.
In fact, OCM are expected to save more than RM1 million with the move to downgrade more national athletes to category B because it is estimated that the cost to send an athlete and an official to the Games which takes place from August 18 to September 2 is around US$50 (RM198) a day.
With the cost for athletes who fall under category B being borne by the respective sporting associations, this means as much as US$800 (RM 3,180) can be saved for each athlete throughout the 16 day duration of the Games, and this does not include transportation cost.
However the amount of savings is expected to be even more as there are still nine sports that will be discussed tomorrow (Wednesday).
Among the sports that will be discussed are hockey, ping pong, paragliding, canoeing, rowing, volleyball, boxing, wushu, and e-sports.
According to OCM secretary-general, Datuk Mohd Nazifuddin Najib, even though the size of the contingent this time round will be much bigger compared to the 2014 edition in Incheon, South Korea, they are still more than satisfied because they have managed to trim the earlier list of athletes from each sports association.
"Most of the athletes who did not qualify to be listed under category A because of the new criterion set and we believe that even more athletes who fall under category B will withdraw because they cannot afford to bear the expenses.
"We estimate that only 350 athletes will make it to the Games this time round compared to the earlier figure predicted that was more than 400 athletes. So there is a significant reduction here,” he said.