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2nd December, 2008
KOTA KINABALU: The Malaysian National Cycling Federation (MNCF) has won its bid to host the 25th Asian Mountain Bike Championship next year in Melaka and has called on all its state affiliates, particularly the Sabah Cycling Association (SCA) to make early preparations.
SCA secretary Beatrice Lajawa told the New Sabah Times Sport yesterday, they received the letter from the MNCF last week, requesting them to get cracking in unearthing strong quality cyclists to warrant berths in the national squad.
Apart from that, MNCF has also informed them that they are also going all out to name the national squad for the 2010 Youth Olympics to be held in August in Singapore.
But she said that their main aim now is to use their 2009 calendar of events as part of their preparations for next year’s Asian Mountain Bike championship, scheduled for Nov 2009 in Melaka.
For a start, all interested cyclists including the elite cyclists have been informed about the 6th Mountain Bike Challenge that will be held at the Lagud Seberang Agricultural Park on Dec 6-7 in Tenom.
“We will use this event as our initial platform to unearth as many new talents to be placed under our youth training programme for cyclists from as young as 10 years old onwards,” she said.
“With our present elite cyclists, these newcomers, if found to be potentials will be nurtured and groomed for the two major events as well as for the Sukma 2010 also in Melaka and the 2009 SAGA Games.
“I call on all parents to accompany their children to the event as we intend to organise a novice category (10 – 13 years old) during this challenge, where they can use either the mountain bike or even the BMX bikes for the 100m and 200m sprint events.”
She added that this should be a very good opportunity for parents to let their children participate in this challenge so that they would be able to be named and undergo systematic long-term training.
MNCF knows very well that Sabah has the resources to produce strong downhill, cross country and sprint cyclists, and they expect at least 100 participants from the West Coast Division, Interior Division like Tambunan, Tenom, Keningau, Nabawan and Pensiangan to compete in this coming challenge in Tenom.
This time around, SCA will be incorporating a relay event (three cyclists in a team) for the men’s open, women’s open and boy’s XC or masters XC for men, as well as boys’ and girls’ age group categories.
The MNCF will be sending four national commissaries including Beatrice to assist and monitor the races and at the same time look for potential cyclists.
Meanwhile, SCA recently sent six cyclists to Ipoh, Perak, last week to compete in the National Sports Council Pelapis Track Event (velodrome), an event new to Sabah cyclists.
There is no velodrome facility in Sabah and this event was an eye opener for them to get the feel and experience, and the one bronze medal from their road racer Laurel Adrian in the point race was indeed a good start.
The rest of the cyclists, although they completed all their races to finish among the top 10 against experienced cyclists from other states was also recommendable.
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