PM Muhyiddin congratulates former squash queen for Greatest Athlete of All Time title

KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has congratulated former Squash Queen Datuk Nicol Ann David for being crowned the World Games Greatest Athlete of All Time, yesterday.

Sharing his pride with all Malaysians on the success of the eight-time world champion, the prime minister said it proved her contributions, sweat and action all this time continued to be noticed by the whole world even after she officially hung up her racquet.

He hopes that the success of the 37-year-old Penang-born athlete will be able to motivate all Malaysians to continue to strive to fly the flag high for Malaysia in any field.

“To the young generation who are just getting used to this sport and the back-up players who are developing their performance, take Nicol's success as a morale booster for you to go further.

“With commitment and hard work, it is not impossible that you all can be like Datuk Nicol Ann David,” he said in the latest posting on Facebook

The former world number one player for 109 consecutive months garnered a majority vote in an online poll on the official World Games website https://www.theworldgames.org, defeating 23 other athletes to win the title.

As the sole Asian candidate, Nicol proved to be in a class of her own since the first day of voting on Jan 8 when she received 318,943 votes, leaving her closest challenger James Kehoe, a tug of war athlete from Ireland with a 200,000-vote advantage.

Kehoe secured 113,120 votes to take second place, followed by powerlifting athlete from Ukraine, Larysa Soloviova, at third place with 80,790 votes.

-- BERNAMA