3rd Uniten Rowing Invitational Bigger and Better Than Previous Year's

20/08/2007

The third Uniten Rowing Invitational, a premier university sporting event, officially ended on Sunday, 19 August 2007 after three days of excitement. The invitational saw participation from 16 universities in the region. The annual event, which has been held since 2005, was sponsored by Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and organised by Universiti Tenaga Nasional and the Malaysian Rowing Association (MRA). The venue for the competition was the Putrajaya Water Sports Complex, Lake Putrajaya, Precinct 6, Putrajaya. The competition started three years ago with only 6 teams and it has grown in size to 16 this year. The Invitational aims at tapping young talents in sports, especially in rowing. Although rowing is an Olympic sport, the sport is relatively new to our country. In a speech to officially close the event, TNB President / Chief Executive Officer Dato’ Sri Che Khalib Mohamad Noh said, “TNB envisages this sport to grow in terms of stature and interest in the future. We believe this sport is a great opportunity for youths to participate in healthy outdoor activities and give them a head-start of character building.” He added that rowing was a sport which required its participants to have the strength, endurance and teamwork - three important characteristics that can be applied in an organisation. The competition involves participation from teams representing University Malaya (UM), International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Multimedia University (MMU), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Perguruan Sultan Idris (UPSI), Universiti Teknologi Mara and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). UTM has been the defending champion of the invitational for the past three years. As the overall champion of this year’s Invitational UTM received a Challenge Trophy and RM3,000 cash. Ateneo University from the Philippines and the National University of Singapore are the only two teams from the region. As part of the sports development programme, TNB and Rowing Association had conducted several rowing clinics for the secondary schools students around Putrajaya. The selected schools were Sekolah Menengah Sri Putri, Sekolah Menengah Putrajaya 1 (Precinct 8), Sekolah Menengah Alam Shah, Sekolah Menengah Putrajaya 3 (Precinct 16) dan Sekolah Menengah Precinct 11-1. The clinics were sponsored by TNB and conducted by rowing coaches from MRA. “The UNITEN Invitational is also another platform for TNB to recognize champions in the sporting field. The company had previously adopted hockey as its core sports. Rowing now takes an important position beside hockey in the company’s agenda to power champions. Rowing as a sport serves to unleash new talents which is in sync with the company’s corporate social responsibility to jolt both rowing and hockey to new levels,” Dato’ Sri Che Khalib added. Some new categories had been added to be competed for this year’s event. The categories are Staff Men Coaxed Four and Staff Women Coaxed Four. These categories saw the participation of the university staff. Among other competing categories are Men Double Scull, Women Double Scull, Men Single Scull, Women Single Scull, Junior Men Coaxed Four, Junior Women Coaxed Four and others. The Junior categories were participated by Secondary Schools students. While the event aims at promoting water sports / outdoor activities to tertiary students and the youth at large, it also serves as an avenue to promote Putrajaya Water Sports Complex as a national water sports centre.