KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Amateur Athletics Association (SAAA) expects to finalise its Ninth Malaysia Games (Sukma 2002) squad only after the State Closed Track & Field Championship from July 19-20.

SAAA has yet to name its final squad and hopes to select the best athletes to don Sabah colours from the championship to be held at the Likas Sports Complex.

The Sukma is only 76 days away, and SAAA must go all out to assemble a squad in their bid to grab at least one or two gold medals from the 43 track and field events.

Its president Haji Dahlan Haji Tengah told the New Sabah Times Sport yesterday they are aware that time is running out.

He said they want to stage the State Closed Championship as successfully as possible and use it as a platform to assess the capabilities of all their officials.

There are a total of 105 organising and technical personnel (70 qualified), who are mostly teachers from the State Education Department, and the meet would give them a good test prior to the biennial Games.

The meet is also aimed at selecting potential athletes who could at least match the third placing (results) of the last Sukma in Pulau Pinang in 2000.

Meanwhile, by allowing the seniors to participate, the juniors and current Sukma trainees would be really pushed for better results.

“We are looking forward for a few reasonable results from this coming meet, which would be our final evaluation and selection ground, because we want to concentrate on our preparations,” he said.

Dahlan said SAAA has secured the assistance of MAAU who would send its highly qualified organisational and technical staff to conduct an intensive Level Three course and examinations for the course participants.