KUALA LUMPUR, June 28 (Bernama) -Eight countries will send their track athletes to the Pre-Olympic and National Closed Athletics Championship to be held at Bukit Jalil on July 4 and 5 as a warm-up session.
Deputy president of the Malaysian Amateur Athletics Union (MAAU) Karim Ibrahim said the eight countries were Brunei Darussalam, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos, Botswana, India and Singapore.
“What’s interesting is that Botswana and India will send eight and four athletes respectively who have qualified for the Beijing Olympic Games in August,” he told reporters at a press conference at the National Stadium, Bukit Jalil on Friday.

Karim said 14 states would send a total of 208 athletes to compete in the National Closed Athletics Championship. He said the championship offered the best opportunity for the national athletes to display their best performance and learn new techniques from the foreign athletes.

Meanwhile, Karim said three national athletes who had qualified for the Beijing Olympics, Roslinda Samsu (women’s pole vault), Yuan Yu Fang (20km walk), and Lee Hup Wei (men’s high jump), were currently undergoing training abroad.

Roslinda is now undergoing training and participating in local competitions in Spain until July 30.
National high-jumper Lee will undergo training and take part in local competitions in Finland from July 6 to 25 while Yuan will undergo training in the Kunming Province, China until the Beijing Olympic Games in August.