Kampar, Malaysia, July 16, 2024: The tin rush is long over in Kampar, the former mining town in Malaysia. Host nation coach Aldrian Yeo is hopeful that this city can now produce metals of another brighter colour in triathlon.
“Triathlon has great support from the authorities in Kampar and the State of Perak, and I hope that one day Malaysia will have a champion triathlete who had his foundation here,” says Yeo.
The 41-year-old Yeo lives in the capital Kuala Lumpur, 200 kilometres from this sleepy town which was established in 1891 due to an influx of Chinese miners seeking ‘Gan Bai’ or precious gold.
Yeo has made the journey with two young athletes, a boy and a girl, and joined athletes and coaches from 24 other Asian National Olympic Committees for the eight-day youth development residential camp organised by the Olympic Council of Asia in collaboration with World Triathlon and Asian Triathlon.
“These past few days have been wonderful and an eye-opening exercise for my athletes. The exposure they have got is invaluable and the experience gained from all the training and theory sessions, plus participating in races, will do them good,” says Yeo.
He has been there and done it. Yeo represented Malaysia for more than 10 years in triathlon. At the 2018 Asian Games he placed 23rd with a time of two hours and five minutes. Now he manages and coaches two triathlon teams – an age group and youth development team – based in Kuala Lumpur.
Having started out as a competitive swimmer, Yeo took up triathlon in 1999 when the sport was still in its infancy in Malaysia. With little or no resources and guidance, he learned through trial and error. This is something he hopes the current generation of athletes don’t have to go through.
“Today we have around 50 triathletes at the elite level and around 100 juniors. But we are still developing the sport. The talent is there in Malaysia, we are never short of that, but what is lacking is a solid development plan. We are thankful to the Olympic Council of Asia, World Triathlon, Asian Triathlon and the Perak Triathlon Association for coming together and putting this camp on,” says Yeo.
Perak Triathlon Association, one of around 10 state associations, wants to become the nerve centre for the sport in Malaysia. For the first time an Asian Cup event was held in this state.
“The authorities in Perak are very active and this is good for the sport in Malaysia. I’m hopeful that Malaysia will one day have an Asian champion in triathlon and if that happens, he or she will most probably have come from Kampar,” Yeo said.
The tin rush is over. But the gold rush might start soon.
