Unearthing, encouraging young Malaysian talents through Kidslympic 2024

Come Dec 28 and 29, the iconic Stadium Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur will be filled with children as they compete in various sporting events.

But it’s no school sports day. Instead, it will mark the beginning of an annual national competition for youths – the Kidslympic 2024. The motivation is to provide a platform for children, between the ages of five and 12, to be unearthed and shine.

“We seldom see events for kids, especially those aged 12 and below. But those are the crucial years as that’s where talent identification starts,” said NOA Malaysia director, Nicholas Chan.

“This is an avenue to get children involved in sports. The Olympic Charter states that everyone has the right to practise sports without discrimination. In fact, this will be the place that will allow children to try sports. If they want to try gymnastics or athletics, they can do so … and once they get the hang of it, they can then take it up seriously.”

“To be honest, we speak about wanting young talents, but we aren’t engaging the young. That needs to change.”

Chan, a father of two boys aged 14 and 17, has seen the impact of sports on the personalities of children.

“Sports can help your child calm down, focus, and inspire others. To me, sports can be the saviour to a lot of things,” he added.

The sports that will be contested during the two-day event are athletics, gymnastics, taekwondo, modern pentathlon, basketball, softball, and volleyball.

Thanks to the support from the Education Ministry, public school students will be able to earn “Bahagian Sukan, Kokurikulum dan Kesenian” marks for participating.

“We want to create the ‘Olympics feel’ in this event. We are thankful to the Education Ministry for its support as it will promote our event to all schools. In return, we will be having awards such as for fair play. This is similar to the Olympic Fair Play Award.”

The official logo and icon of the event were launched on Dec 4 at Stadium Merdeka. Present at the event was former shuttler and Olympian, Goh Liu Ying.

Chan said more information, including registration forms and the rules of the events, will be made public in the coming days.