| Fadhil Yunus |
THE Brunei Darussalam Athletics Federation (BDAF) expressed pride over the athletes returning from Ho Chi Minh City following the end of the 17th Asian Junior Athletics Championships for their highly spirited performance, persistence and never-say-die attitude to fight in lifting the image of the country on the global stage.
Despite a subtle hint of satisfaction, the preservation of current personal bests represents a big challenge in the way forward for the association’s next course of action with Mohd Hakeem @ Faiz Sulaiman’s best time of 22.98 unable to change the outlook of targets not being met.
The General Secretary of BDAF, Md Shahjohan bin Haji Shari remarked that mental and physical preparations must be enhanced because athletes competing in every stage of the event must withstand diverse mental and physical pressures.
The newly-appointed general secretary, who succeeded Adia Tawang, stressed the importance of exposure in competitions saying that athletes must get used to it especially young athletes.
In Brunei, programmes devoted to preparing individuals should exist to multiply their chances of accomplishing great results on the international stage.
Md Shahjohan bin Haji Shari, General Secretary of BDAF (Left) with the Brunei junior athletes and Belait-based national athletes coach, Fidel Gallenero. – KHAIRIL HASSAN
The general secretary called for the establishment of leagues at various levels to help identify a candidate to be selected in international competitions.
“I believe what should be done is to expand sports development programmes at home such as leagues, age group championships, district and national level championships before they are selected to represent the national team in the regional or international stage,” Md Shahjohan said.
The general secretary’s suggestions do not come as a surprise as the globally-known IAAF Diamond League has produced a multitude of talents across the world.
“As an example, an international professional athlete will require 30-40 competitions per year. This includes national and overseas competitions,” he continued.
“In the development stage, they require 20-30 competitions per year while at grassroots level they require 10-20 competitions per year.”
In covering the performance of the athletes, they must be assessed based on improvements or deterioration the training programmes designed by the coach whereby their targets are in accordance with a general plan which contains several phases including peak performance.
“Each athlete can only see an increase of three to five per cent in one year. This depends on how long the training is conducted.
“There is a time where an athlete does not perform well for various reasons.”
The adaptation of the body could be one of the factors affecting the individual who needs to find adjustments in the change of weather or their adaptation in training such as competition time.
An athlete has the chance to compete in the preliminary, semi-finals and finals in the national or regional stage.
However, the national track athletes have limited opportunities and face a heavy burden as they could only demonstrate their performance in the preliminary stage as only the top two athletes’ advance to the next round.
The general secretary also encouraged the national field athletes to work extremely hard towards posting their best performances in the three initial attempts before being selected in the top eight and continue with the three subsequent attempts and complete the six allocated throws or jumps.
“From these several aspects we can already notice the comparisons between our athletes and those from overseas,” he asserted.
Md Shahjohan also shared that a professional athlete requires 18-20 training sessions per week which takes two to three hours per session.
He said that development athletes or athletes to be absorbed require 10-16 training sessions per week which is equivalent to 90-120 minutes per session, adding that a grassroots athlete requires six to eight training sessions per week which takes 60-90 minutes per session.
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