This was announced by Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin after a grand welcome home ceremony for the Malaysian paralympic team here today.

Previously, a coach was entitled to 20 per cent of the amount given to the gold medallists.

The money is paid separately under the National Sports Council (NSC) incentive scheme.

The three coaches – R Jaganathan, Mohd Faizol Harun and Mohd Syahrul Amri Suhaimi – are now set to collect RM300,000 each for guiding their protégés to historic gold medal feats.

Khairy said that this was an incentive to further inspire athletes and coaches to keep striving for gold in future events.

“We are placed second in Southeast Asia (for Paralympics) behind Thailand.

“In next year’s Asean Para Games, Thailand is ahead of us realistically, but we will do our best and aim for at least second place.

“We want to widen our pool of athletes, especially the young ones. I want the OKU (disabled) youngsters to choose sports.

“Our paralympians will go around inspiring and motivate schools, whether OKU or otherwise,” Khairy said at a press conference.

The NSC incentive scheme provides for a RM1 million reward for gold medal athletes.

As for the silver and bronze, the rewards are RM300,000 and RM100,000 respectively.

Meanwhile, gold medallists will receive a monthly lifetime allowance of RM5,000. This is followed by RM3,000 for silver and RM2,000 for bronze.

The national paralympians created history by winning three gold medals and a bronze in Rio – all in athletics and in the process ended the country’s long-awaited dream of securing Olympic gold medals.

The winners include first gold medal winner Mohamad Ridzuan Mohamad Puzi (men’s 100m T36), World Record setter Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli (men’s F20 shot putt), Abdul Latif Romly (men’s T20 long jump) and bronze medallist Siti Noor Radiah Ismail (women’s T20 long jump).