KUALA LUMPUR: National Sports Council (NSC) will ramp up its media training programme to help athletes field media questions.
Malaysian athletes' inability to communicate well with the press came under the spotlight after national badminton players Choong Hon Jian and Haikal Nazri struggled to come up with answers during a post-match interview in English at the Guwahati Masters in India last week.
The video of the interview, which has gone viral, has drawn mixed reactions from fans and critics with some saying Malaysian athletes should be able to speak English well while others defended Hon Jian and Haikal, saying no one should be ridiculed for not speaking fluently.
NSC athletes division director Jefri Ngadirin said they had conducted media training for athletes ahead of major multi-games and the role of providing media training for athletes comes under their respective National Sports Associations (NSAs).
He said NSC is willing to help NSAs come up with media training modules for the athletes.
"We provide media training for athletes during national camps before major multi-games events. We have invited media practitioners to brief athletes on how to take or respond to questions from the media. This has always been a practice for the NSC," said Jefri.
"Some NSAs, like FAM and BAM have their own media department and conduct their own media training but some smaller NSAs are not well-versed with media training. These NSAs need to look at the importance of media training for their athletes.
"Media training should be held continuously and not done on an ad hoc basis. We are willing to help the NSAs. We will have a talk with them to formulate a media training module."
Meanwhile BAM said they will look into media training programmes to equip national shuttlers.
BAM has seen how their doubles players, Hon Jian and Haikal, looked so awkward during the post-match interview at the Guwahati Masters.
BAM secretary general Datuk Kenny Goh revealed that media training has been an ongoing process with the national shuttlers as they need to understand that they are role models for the young people in the country.
"Media training is something that BAM conducts continuously, we will invite media practitioners to teach the athletes, we usually have two sessions per year but this time we could only have one due to the athletes availability as they have an hectic schedule with competition and training," said Kenny.
"It's something that we will look to improve on. The priority has been on the performance of the athletes on the court. We want athletes to be able to win or deliver results first. There's no point in being eloquent without results.
"I think the athletes need to realise that they are role models for young people when they represent the country... it's part of the package being an athlete and something that is unavoidable.
"So athletes need to be more aware of their actions. The fans adore them nowadays so the athletes need to be careful on how they conduct themselves."