A leader striving to inspire

Paralympians Siti Noor Radiah Ismail, Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, Abdul Latif Romly and Mohamad Ridzuan Mohamad Puzi showing their medals at the welcome ceremony for the Rio 2016 paralympic team.

ALTHOUGH the Malaysian Paralympics Council (MPC) will not be hosting any events for Hari Sukan Negara today, MPC president SM Nasarudin SM Nasimuddin will be taking part in one of the several activities lined up.

“Maybe I will join the crowd in Dataran Merdeka, or find out where the other para athletic activities are being held and see if I can help there,” said the businessman.

Aside from that, he has also been forwarding links for today’s events to his close friends to participate in.

Before the Naza Group’s joint group executive chairman became MPC president, like many others before Rio 2016, SM Nasarudin had little idea what para-athletics was.

“When Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin called me in December and told me about the position, pending the executive council’s agreement, I had to read up first,” he said.

Having been appointed in January this year, SM Nasarudin realised there were a lot of legacy problems, including financial issues due to the lack of proper procedures. “Basically I had to work from the ground up, and use my business background to ‘corporatise’ the council and institute proper corporate governance,” the businessman said.

Now that that’s done, he added, it was time to focus on the para athletes and help them grow professionally.

Currently, the National Sports Institute has two programmes for its athletes — the Podium programme for elite athletes and a grassroots outreach programme called “Inspire” which was announced in March this year.

“So far, 27 para athletes, including the Rio 2016 Paralympics medallists, have been included in the Podium programme,” said SM Nasarudin.

Podium programme athletes are expected to win medals.

“Moving forward, the athletes also want to improve, and they feel that local coaches are capable, but outside help would also be welcome,” SM Nasarudin added.

Additionally, the elite programme also identifies areas for improvement, with specific programmes for each, including nutrition, he added.

Such has been the programme’s success in identifying talent that at the recent Sukan Malaysia (Sukma) games, 11 of Perlis’ Sukma para athletes immediately joined the Podium programme, said SM Nasarudin.

The timely announcement of the grassroots “Inspire” programme should also help in identifying future Paralympic talent, he said.

The stories and backgrounds of Malaysia’s Rio Paralympian medallists, he added, would help inspire more from the disabled community to join in and unleash their hidden talents.

“As the numbers increase, we have pretty high hopes for the South-East Asia (Sea) Games 2017,” he said.

Naza Group is sponsoring four cars and Soho units to the four Rio Paralympic medallists, with the ceremony taking place this Monday.

“Their victory has also sparked corporate interest from all over, and now we are getting a lot of enquiries about sponsoring the para athletes,” said SM Nasarudin.

But the Naza Group is generally associated with sports, he explained, such as sponsoring the Naza PSA Women’s World Championship, and also becoming official transport sponsor for the 2017 Sea Games.

“Back in Rio, the Olympics team had set the tone, we were so close to winning gold, so when we talked to the Paralympics squad, they could feel the weight, that we needed to win a gold for Malaysia,” he said.

“And when our Paralympians stood on the podium, with the Negaraku playing and everything, I immediately said we had to be part of it and support it, because they are Malaysian icons.”

SM Nasarudin himself keeps fit by working out five times a week, doing weightlifting and cardio.

“I find that if I don’t work out and become less active, my mind also becomes sluggish,” said the businessman.

“It’s also a challenge at times with food, he laughed, explaining that while he was not of the steamed chicken breast persuasion, currently he was on a low-carb diet.

“But you need to have your cheat days, and the food must be good, otherwise you will have wasted your calories!” he said with a laugh.