Wai Ching will receive a monthly allowance of RM9,300 from next month until June next year from Tan’s personal charity organisation, Better Malaysia Foundation (BMF).
Tan said Wai Ching, 27, was a phenomenal athlete who deserved to be financially supported for making Malaysia proud and for soaring to great heights in a sport that offered no prize money.
“It’s unfortunate that such great athletes are having to constantly seek donations in order to represent the country,” the Berjaya Corp Bhd founder told a press conference.
He said for sports to progress in Malaysia, there must be a holistic and collaborative approach by all stakeholders, key among them the business community and government.
He said he knew nothing about tower running until he read an FMT report about Wai Ching’s exceptional achievements and that of his financial challenges.
BMF deputy chairman Sunita Mei-Lin Rajakumar described the sponsorship as “a collaboration between an entrepreneur with great mental strength and an athlete with great mental fortitude”.
Tan and Sunita jointly presented a mock cheque for RM111,600 to Wai Ching at the Berjaya Times Square Hotel.
In May, BMF provided US$52,000 to US-based Malaysian athlete Shereen Vallabouy in her pursuit of academic and sporting excellence.
Shereen and Wai Ching came on the radar of BMF following FMT reports about their struggles.
Wai Ching rose to become the world’s top tower runner with his depleting savings. His two sponsors pulled out in February to focus on team sports.
He thanked BMF for believing in his cause to make Malaysia soar in tower running and for encouraging the value of being a giver.
“BMF’s acts of giving will forever be imprinted in the lives of the beneficiaries, and I will similarly be committed to giving back to the community,” he said.
The sponsorship has made Wai Ching, a sports science graduate and son of a Selayang taxi driver, to relocate here from Dubai where he has lived for the past 145 days.
He had decided to base himself in Dubai as he had access to tall buildings for his training and it was easier for him to travel around the world for competitions.
Ranked World No 1 since April, Wai Ching’s first competition on BMF backing, and running in a ‘Malaysia Berjaya’ vest, is the run up the 45-storey Suntec Tower on July 9 in Singapore, where he hopes to widen his world ranking points.
After that, there are 14 more tower runs until December in the US, Germany, Japan, Estonia, China, and Malaysia.
Since making his debut in tower running in 2017, he has competed in 69 races worldwide, with 37 wins, 23 course records and 19 consecutive wins from December 2019 until May this year.
Wai Ching said he wished to see a breakthrough in tower running in Malaysia that is ranked No 9 in the world.
“Now that I am back in Malaysia, my next goal is to build a strong national team and lead them to compete internationally,” he said, adding that the skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur were ideal for promoting the sport in the country.
He said the Malaysian TowerRunning Association, which he co-founded, had obtained the rights to host the Towerrunning Asia / Oceania Championships this year.
“We are committed to promoting tower running and hope it will be considered for the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games in 2027,” he said.