Khairy said Malaysians needed to share the excitement and honour of Schooling being Southeast Asia’s sole Olympic gold medallist in swimming.
“Let’s not dwell on this too much,” he said, adding that it was important to remember that Schooling’s mother was Malaysian and that he did not think the swimmer had meant the remarks in any negative manner.
Pointing out that the biennial games was a celebration, he expressed hope that the matter would be put to rest.
Khairy was speaking to reporters after opening the KL2017 Main Press Centre and International Broadcast Centre (IBC) at the Malaysian International Trade and Exhibition Centre (Mitec) here yesterday.
The 22-year-old Schooling had said that his comments about going to “Malaysia’s backyard” during the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games (KL2017) and teaching “them a thing or two” had been taken out of context, according to a Channel NewsAsia report.
“But I was actually talking about the younger kids going there, and teaching all the rookies a thing or two about the launchpad that we have in the SEA Games to bigger and better meets in the future,” Schooling was quoted as saying.
The SEA Games officially runs from Aug 19 to 30 with 404 events across 38 sports.