KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 — Former Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has defended the Malaysian contingent’s performance at the Paris Olympics, describing their overall showing as neither a failure nor a standout success.

In his Keluar Sekejap podcast. Khairy said that after securing two bronze medals from the Paris Games, he commended the athletes for their efforts, noting that while their performance was commendable, it was average compared to previous achievements.

Keluar Sekejap is a weekly Malaysian political podcast hosted by Khairy and Shahril Hamdan.

He pointed out that the recent medal tally aligned with Malaysia’s past results in Atlanta 1996 and London 2012, but fell short of the five medals won in Rio 2016.

“I don’t see this as a failure, but we need to acknowledge that our results were average.

“The expectations were high, especially after the success in Rio, but it’s important to keep in mind that those five medals were an outlier in our Olympic history,” he said in the latest episode.

Earlier, Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh had apologised for Malaysia’s failure to secure its first Olympic gold medal at the Paris Games. Yeoh indicated that an audit report on the contingent’s performance would be presented in Parliament and added that the Road to Gold programme has been established for both the Paris and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2024/08/14/khairy-malaysias-performance-in-paris-2024-not-a-failure-it-was-just-average/146941