Edra Power sponsors athletes for Thailand school sports games

KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 (Bernama) --  Edra Power Holdings Sdn Bhd is sponsoring athletes from a secondary sports school in Melaka, SMK Seri Kota in Bukit Serindit to compete in the Thailand Sports School Games to be held at Khon Kaen from July 30 to Aug 8.

The sponsorship worth RM28,500 was handed over to the school’s Principal Md Isa Jani by Edra Power Vice President II  Jennifer Aleeya Wong recently, the independent power producer said in a statement.

Fourteen top athletes from SMK Seri Kota have been selected to participate in the annual event, including nine who will be representing the school for the first time. 

In 2017, the school sent five athletes to the competition and it won one silver medal in athletics. Last year,  its athletics team bagged two gold, three silver and three bronze medals. 

TSSG 2019 is organised by the Institute of Physical Education of Thailand's Ministry of Tourism and Sports  and attracts participants from Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Singapore besides the host nation.

The sports school serves as a breeding ground for developing high performance athletes. Among athletes who studied at the school is national 200-metre and 400-metre runner Khairul Hafiz Jantan, while Melaka United Soccer Association’s (MUSA) junior football team members were also scouted from SMK Seri Kota, said the statement.

Sports is one of Edra’s key focus in its corporate social responsibility agenda and for this, it has made huge financial commitments. The company has been supporting and developing the MUSA Football Club with a three-year sponsorship of RM5 million from 2016 to 2018.

Melaka is host to three of five power plants owned by Edra, Malaysia's second largest independent power producer.

The statement said the company has also contributed RM20,000 towards the training attire of Malaysia’s Para Athletes who competed in the 12th Para Asian Games 2018 at Jakarta and is sponsoring RM375,000 for Malaysia national sprinters Zaidatul Husniah Zulkifli and Jonathan Nyepa who are currently undergoing training in the United States.

SMK Seri Kota Principal Md Isa said Edra's sponsorships  would enable the athletes at the school to compete at a higher level as the exposure would put them in a stronger footing in future to represent Malaysia internationally.

"This support from Edra is highly needed and a great motivation for the athletes to train harder to achieve higher performance," he said.

The school's head coach Noraziah Kassim said since its athletes competed in the TSSG, it was obvious their performance and confidence had improved year to year with the stiff competition coming from some 30 teams at the Games.

"So the level of competition is actually very high and tough. For this coming Games, we are aiming to win at least three gold medals," she said.

Middle distance runner Teh Ren Qi,15, who won one gold, one silver and one bronze at last year's Games, said she was looking forward to winning more gold this time.

Muhammad Shazwan Hasnol, 15, who won one gold in Javelin in the 2018 Games with a record of 46.5 metres said he aimed to better the record at 50 metres.

Wong said the company was constantly looking at avenues to develop the school sports programmes by nurturing young budding athletes to do their best.

"They will be participating in the Thailand Games. With the exposure at the international platform, these young athletes will be able to gain their self-confidence, able to benchmark their capabilities and have their enthusiasm to further improve their standard in their sports," she said.

-- BERNAMA