KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian cueists will have to withdraw from the 2025 Thailand Sea Games if the selection criteria is changed.
The Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) revealed today that its Sea Games selection committee is contemplating a top three regional rankings and top four for team events for Category A (fully-funded), while Category B (self-funded) athletes need to be in the top six and under the age of 23.
OCM, however, will give national sports associations (NSAs) the room to present their cases to the selection committee.
Malaysian Snooker and Billiards Federation (MSBF) president Melvin Chia said that they have no choice but drop out from the biennial games due to lack of young medal prospects.
He said the country's gold medal prospects are still former Sea Games champions Rory Thor and Moh Keen Hoo, who will be aged 38 at the 2025 Sea Games while Lim Kok Leong will be 30.
"We will inform the selection committee our situation. It's not easy for us to produce young athletes because we don't get any funding from the National Sports Council (NSC) for development," said Melvin.
"Our current athletes and former Sea Games gold medallists came from the development programme back in 2002 and 2007. After that we could not run the development programme due to lack of funding.
"If the selection committee stays with its decision to have Under-23 athletes for Category B, we have no choice other than to withdraw, because we don't have the athletes.
"We don't want to send raw young athletes and end up embarrassing the country and the sport in the Sea Games."
Melvin added that it has been a never-ending struggle for MSBF to train youngsters due to age restriction at snooker centres.
"We already don't have funds for development of new athletes and on top of that, snooker centres are only permitted for those above the age of 18. It's the rules and it's something that affects us the most," lamented Melvin.
"We have been banking on the older guys for the past 12 years and if these guys leave, we won't have calibre cueists anymore. We have to keep in mind that our cueists are not part of any national programmes, they are all amateurs who train ad-hoc for multi-games like the Sea Games."