Eyeing Cycling Development Costs

2009/07/06

Cycling: Massive savings for NSC programmes

By : Arnaz M. Khairul

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THE national road and track cycling programmes will be getting a long awaited boost in a deal that will provide the National Sports Council (NSC) with massive savings with Australia's Teschner Technologies Group as bike suppliers.

Years of questionable sums spent by the NSC on purchase of bicycles from local suppliers will be somewhat calmed in a deal that only awaits the official approval from the Malaysian National Cycling Federation's (MNCF) executive committee.

MNCF deputy president Datuk Naim Mohamad said the track sprints squad based in Melbourne will be the first to receive the Teschner bicycles, with the road squad preparing for the Asian Championships to follow suit.

"This is part of a deal outlined in a cooperative sports agreement between Malaysia and Australia," said Naim.

More details on the agreement are expected to be announced by Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephen Smith at the Australian High Commission.
"In principal, all our executive committee members have agreed to the deal and it is just about making it official in a meeting," said Naim.

"What is also important is that this frees up more space and budgets, so that more cyclists can benefit from our development programmes."

On a separate note, Naim said, more riders from the back-up programmes will be having stints in Melbourne, while those in the elite squad will continue to be based there.

"This will be on an ad hoc basis. Eventually, the back-up riders will be the ones to fill in spaces left by the current elite squad so it is only ideal that they be exposed to what they can expect to be part of once they move up," said Naim.

"At the same time, the back-up riders will need to know where they stand in comparison to the elite riders and other better riders in Australia, where there are more high level competitions than what we have available here."