PHNOM PENH, May 17 — Chef de mission (CDM) to the 2023 SEA Games, Datuk Mohd Nasir Ali apologised to all Malaysians following the national contingent’s failure to achieve the 40-gold target at the biennial Games here.

Mohd Nasir said the 677 athletes who shouldered Malaysia’s challenge had fought hard and described the haul of 34 gold, 45 silver and 96 bronze medals this time as the best achievement that could be produced.

"I humbly wish to apologise if the 40-gold target was something hoped for but we didn’t achieve it.

"But the 34 gold won are medals of quality, I am confident that we can improve on this 34-gold haul,” he told the Malaysian media here.

The 34-gold haul saw the Malaysian contingent record their worst performance since collecting 31 gold medals overall in the 1995 edition in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

However, based on the actual position, Malaysia finished the competition in the worst position at seventh place for the first time in the history of the SEA Games after occupying sixth place in the edition in Hanoi, Vietnam last year.

Commenting further, Mohd Nasir reiterated his stand that the 40-gold target was a realistic one.

He said setting the target at 40 gold was not made casually after three meetings were held previously to finalise the number of gold medals that could potentially be collected.

"We held three meetings so it (the target) was not a last minute thing and we also discussed the target with each association, so after this we need to go back to the associations and ask for an explanation,” he said.

In the meantime, he did not feel that short preparation was the main factor contributing to the failure of the national contingent here, although he admitted that some sports faced problems during the preparation period.

Without revealing the identitIes of the sports, he said the core sports had indeed been prepared earlier while some of the less popular sports were still given the opportunity to perform here despite short preparation.

Meanwhile, Mohd Nasir said Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh together with the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president (Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria) will provide details on the performance and achievements of the athletes at the 2023 SEA Games at a performance summary press conference in Kuala Lumpur, this Friday.

"This decision does not mean that the KBS (Ministry of Youth and Sports), OCM, MSN (National Sports Council) or ISN (National Sports Institute) do not want to face the media (here), but a detailed analysis of the performance of the Malaysian contingent needs to be done one by one,” he said. — Bernama