PETALING JAYA, Sept 11 — Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh expressed hope that Malaysia will not only be able to bring home gold at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games (LA28), but also witness female athletes returning to the podium at the prestigious event, held every four years.

Hannah stated that this hope can be placed on female squash players who are seen to have a positive approach under the guidance of the Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM).

"When I looked at the list of Malaysian medallists from the Paris Olympics and Paris Paralympics, I could not find a single woman on the list.

"In LA2028 we will not just be in search of a gold medal, but also hope to see a female athlete rise to the occasion and be on the podium,” said Hannah today after officiating the launch of the ACE Malaysia Squash Cup 2024 here yesterday.

Hannah said squash is one of the rare sports in Malaysia where there are more women in the top-100 of the world rankings than men and the ministry has already started early preparations for LA2028 in all sports including squash.

"This is important if we are to win medals as China have also started to prepare their players for LA2028,” she said while explaining that they have recruited squash legend Datuk Nicol David in the board of the National Sports Institute to progress.

For the record, divers Cheong Jun Hoon-Pandelela Rinong won silver for Malaysia in the women’s 10m platform synchronised event while Goh Liu Ying and partner Chan Peng Soon also claimed silver in the badminton mixed doubles event at Rio 2016.

However, no Malaysian woman finished on the podium at Tokyo 2020 nor the recently concluded Paris games.

The Professional Squash Association (PSA) World Tour Series bronze-level tournament will be held from Nov 12-17 at The Curve, with over 100,000 spectators expected to watch the matches.

Earlier, Hannah witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between ACE Sports & Management that partnered with the University of the West England (UWE) to offer scholarships to young Malaysian professionals.

The partnership that starts this year will last until 2029 with Malaysian athletes must be in top 200 world ranking to be chosen. — Bernama