Naim appointed track team manager

2010/01/05

By Arnaz M. Khairul

arnaz@nstp.com.my THE Malaysian National Cycling Federation (MNCF) has been quick to appoint Datuk Naim Mohamad as the track squad's team manager for their five big competitions this year.

This is in response to Guangzhou Asian Games chef-de-mission Datuk Zolkples Embong's call for national sports associations (NSAs) to appoint their managers early to ease preparations.

Zolkples, who is also National Sports Council (NSC) director general, had also recently called for NSAs to stop the practice of rotating team managers' duties between officials for various meets, something which the MNCF had been practicing previously.

Naim, who is also MNCF deputy president, said he will be overseeing the track squad for both the Asian Games in October and Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in November, with MNCF treasurer Amrun Misnoh in charge of the road squads for both events.

DATUK NAIM MOHAMAD

"With the Asian and Commonwealth Games as our main targets, we will begin right away to see through the earlier targets such as Le Tour de Langkawi (LTdL) for the road team and the World Championships for the track team," said Naim.

"This way, we will be able to work from the start and see through our targets, and to ensure that we are on track to meeting our ultimate target which is the London Olympics in 2012."

The road team will have, apart from LTdL in March, the Asian Championships and Jelajah Malaysia in April by which they will be evaluated this year, following a revamp after their dismal performances in the Laos Sea Games last month.

MNCF president Abu Samah Wahab will now take over the mountain bike programme, previously under Amrun.

The targets for that programme are firstly at the Asian Mountain Bike Championships in April, after which an evaluation will be made on whether the squad should be prepared for the Asian Games.