SEPANG, The Malaysian Athletics Federation (MAF) is giving three young national athletes the freedom to choose to either represent their states at the Malaysia Games (SUKMA) or take on the national challenge at the World Athletics Under 20 (U-20) Championships 2024. MAF technical director Robert Ballard said this is because of the overlapping dates of the two tournaments, with SUKMA slated to take place on Aug 17-24 in Sarawak while the World Athletics U-20 Championships on Aug 27-31 in Lima, Peru. He said that the governing body will respect the decisions made by the athletes and state associations, but he hopes they will be able to make the final decision as soon as possible before Aug 4. 'It's not for MAF to decide for the athlete and we are not going to force an athlete to go somewhere. It will be the decision of the athletes and their respective state associations on whether they want to compete in SUKMA or go to Peru.' Ballard said this after welcoming the athletes' return from the Asian Under-20 ( U-20) Athletics Championships in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) here today. The athletics team managed to bag two bronze medals at Dubai through Ng Tak Sik (triple jump) and Pengiran Aidil Auf Hajam (200 meters) which saw them qualify on merit for the World Athletics U-20 Championships and will be joined by Hanssen Yap Soo who recorded 10.41 seconds for the 100-metre event. Pengiran Aidil and Hanssen are both managed by the Sabah State Sports Council while Tak Sing is under Penang State Sports Council's care. Commenting about the success at the Asian U-20 Athletics Championships, Ballard said he was proud of the athletes' success considering that they were in the youth development group where there was no target set for them in the tournament. 'Three athletes achieved the minimum standard for the world under 20, so that's a great achievement for us and a good step forward and we hope that you know in the future the next ones in Hong Kong in 2026 we may have a lot more qualifiers for world under 20s,' he said. Source: BERNAMA News Agency