Hats off to dodgeball teams

THE national Men and Women dodgeball squads who returned from the 7th WDBF Dodgeball World Championships last year with gold and silver medals respectively, received certificates of achievement along with bundles of high praise from the Youth and Sports Ministry.

It comes as a huge morale boost to the Malaysian Association of Dodgeball (MAD), which has been pushing hard against the odds to gain recognition and to grow the sport over the past few years.

The Men’s team were able to defeat hosts US in a thrilling 5-4 sudden death encounter to defend their 2017 title while the 2016 and 2017 world champion Women’s team lost 8-5 in the final against US after putting up a strong fight in Los Angeles last year.

Both teams were led by head coach Albert Tan.

Even the digital dodgeball team received recognition after winning the Best Challenger’s Award at the Hado World Cup in Tokyo last December.

Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Steven Sim, with newly appointed MAD president Datuk Radha Krishnan, who attended the ceremony at the Youth and Sports Ministry in Putrajaya, commended the association, committee members and national players for their efforts.

The Malaysian Men’s team in action at the WDBF World Championships 2018 in Los Angel

“It is not easy developing a strategy to grow a new sports association and even though it is considered an emerging sport in Malaysia, MAD has been successful in building dodgeball from a community sport to the formation of a national team that is feared at the international level,” said the deputy minister.

“They do not receive a huge allocation from the Government. Despite this, they have managed to gain a lot of success, locally and internationally.”

The association received RM40,000 of funding from the Government and was able to raise an additional RM13,000 from selling apparel to offset their costs for the competition.

“I am also very proud of the fact that the dodgeball coaching syllabus developed by MAD has been recognised by the World Dodgeball Federation which means that countries that introduce the sport in their countries will be using MAD’s syllabus.”

The minister also encouraged other national sports associations to follow in MAD’s footsteps after dodgeball was able to find its way into the Malaysian physical education textbooks as one of the topics since 2018.

“We are now the Asia Pacific dodgeball hub and with our accomplishments so far, I believe Malaysia can go on to be the dodgeball hub of the world,” he said.

Sim (right) and Radha showing the physical education textbook with dodgeball as one of its topics.

Radha lauded the association for the good work done in the past years and aims to take dodgeball to the next level.

“Although the sport of dodgeball is fairly new to me, my experience in helping to develop sports like gymnastics, archery and lawn bowls from the ground up in Malaysia will certainly allow me to lend a hand in repositioning dodgeball as a high performance sport,” said Radha, who is also managing director of Universal Fitness & Leisure, a fitness and outdoor equipment supplying business.

A key step taken by MAD was to introduce dodgeball in schools in 2018 and having established a national sports programme which involves grassroots development, the sport should see a steady stream of skilled players coming in to the fore in the near future.

“I applaud the association for having designed this pathway for the further development of dodgeball in schools and universities,” he said.

“My immediate priority is to work towards introducing dodgeball as a demonstration sport at the next Sukma and Sea Games. I will also begin a dialogue with the Olympic Council of Malaysia for dodgeball to be endorsed as an affiliate sport,” Radha said.

Radha also added that as Asia Pacific’s dodgeball hub, Malaysia would be looking to host the inaugural Asia Pacific Dodgeball Championships later this year.

“At the same time, more focus will be put into upgrading the national league to include more states as well as enhancing existing campus and school programmes to further institute better training facilities and coaching,” he added.