PUTRAJAYA - Sarawak have been officially chosen as the host of the 2024 Malaysia Games (Sukma) and will organise the country's biggest sports event for the third time after the 1990 and 2016 editions.
The selection of Sarawak was made at today's Sukma Supreme Committee Meeting chaired by Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh.
Hannah said Sarawak's selection was based on the agreement of the members to introduce a system of alternating hosts every two years between the National Sports Council (MSN) and the states.
According to her, Sukma 2026 will be organised by MSN while Kelantan agreed to accept the responsibility of hosting the 2028 edition to give them a longer preparation period.
"The rationale behind the host rotation system is to reduce the burden on the federal government to provide financial assistance to the states which covers the allocation of construction and upgrading of sports infrastructure, the cost of organising and also the financing of athlete preparation programmes at the state level," she said.
Hannah said this at a press conference after chairing the meeting at Menara Kementerian Belia dan Sukan (KBS) here.
Meanwhile, she said the Supreme Committee also approved a proposal that 28 types of sports must be contested starting from the 2024 edition.
Among the list of 28 compulsory sports are aquatics (swimming and diving), weightlifting, badminton, cycling (track and highway), gymnastics (artistic and rhythmic), golf, fencing, archery, shooting, athletics, sailing and hockey.
Completing the list are judo, table tennis, taekwondo, karate, lawn bowls, pencak silat, sepak takraw, squash, tenpin bowling, wushu, football, rugby, netball, basketball, volleyball and tennis.
At the same time, Hannah said that as the hosts of the 2024 edition, Sarawak was given the option of including several additional sports and had decided to list four, namely boxing, muay thai, petanque and electronic sports( e-Sports), but this was subject to a minimum number of participation of six states as contained in General Rules of Malaysian Sports.
In the meantime, she said the committee also agreed for MSN to hold several engagement sessions with national sports associations and related stakeholders to study the possibility of opening participation to more types of sports in future editions of the Sukma. - BERNAMA