Ng Joo Pong

Joo Pong suffered two strokes, the second around 2019, after which he was largely confined to bed at home in Shah Alam. In November 2019 YAKEB reported him admitted to Hospital Shah Alam with a heart problem. YAKEB gave him financial help for medical needs in December 2023 and visited him with the National Sports Council and F&N at Chinese New Year in 2024. On 2 April 2026 he was admitted to Universiti Malaya Medical Centre, placed in the red zone because his blood pressure had fallen dangerously low.

His death at the age of 80 was confirmed by Datuk Ng Joo Ngan on Wednesday 21 October 2026. The cause of death and place of death were not made public, and funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.

Ng Joo Pong was born on 19 June 1946 in Kuala Lumpur, one of 17 children of Ng Swee Long, a businessman, and his wife. The family ran a small water supply business at the 4th mile of Old Klang Road, and as a teenager Joo Pong was put in charge of the pump that supplied well water to every household in a village from 6am to 6pm, for RM6 a month per home. When it rained he had to switch the pump off in case of lightning.

The well was some distance from home, so he borrowed his father's bicycle without asking, and was beaten for it and for his many falls. "But that did not stop me from using the bicycle," he later recalled. His parents refused to buy him a bicycle, so he earned one: at 12 he sold 60 raffle booklets at RM5 each for a Christmas lucky draw at La Salle Brickfields in 1959 and won a China-made bicycle worth RM75. Olympedia describes his first bike as one made from scrap iron, replaced by a proper racing bicycle about six months later.

Joo Pong went to school in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. After a poor result in Bahasa Malaysia in his Standard Six examination, which he blamed with a laugh on the time he spent selling raffle tickets, he moved to the private St Anthony's school. It was at the St Anthony's school meet in 1960 that he won his first race, a 15-mile ride from the school to Sungai Way and back.

Training on Jalan Duta, Joo Pong met national cyclists including N. Rosli, who urged him to race on the road. He soon beat them. In 1963, aged 17, he won the Malaya Open Championships, and at the first Asian Cycling Championships at Merdeka Stadium, Kuala Lumpur, he won bronze in the individual time trial behind Taworn Jirapan of Thailand and Masashi Omiya of Japan, the first medal for his country at the championships. He also won gold in the 1,600 m grass track team time trial with Conrad Talalla, Andrew Michael and a fourth teammate (named in different sources as Jallaludin Yusof or Hamzah Ahmad).

He qualified for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics through four days of trials from Alor Setar to Johor Bahru, reaching the podium in four consecutive stages out of six. In Tokyo, aged 18, he rode the 100 km team time trial with Arulraj Rosli, Choy Mow Thim and Tjow Choon Boon (32nd), the 1,000 m time trial (24th, 1:20.68) and the 4,000 m team pursuit, where Malaysia's quartet met Uruguay in the heats. He rode a bicycle his parents had bought for RM270 from the Robinsons store.

At the 1965 SEAP Games he won silver in the 1,000 m individual time trial and silver in the 10,000 m individual massed start, finishing one tenth of a second behind the winner. At the 1967 SEAP Games in Kuala Lumpur he took bronze in the 4,000 m individual pursuit and the 10,000 m massed start. He returned to the Olympics in Mexico City in 1968 for the individual road race, which he did not finish.

At the 1970 Asian Games in Bangkok he won bronze in the 10,000 m mass start, while his younger brother Ng Joo Ngan won the road race and teammate Daud Ibrahim won the 1,600 m mass start. He had considered skipping those Games after a serious crash but worked to qualify to keep his brother company. He retired after Bangkok 1970. Malaysian media called him "The King of the Road".

Joo Pong was the elder brother of Datuk Ng Joo Ngan, widely regarded as Malaysia's most successful road cyclist, and it was Joo Pong who first took up cycling and drew his brother into the sport. Their father, Ng Swee Long, followed the brothers by car on training rides along Jalan Kuchai Lama to keep them safe, rewarding wins with cow's milk in Brickfields. He was killed in April 1969 when his car collided with a lorry during a morning training session. "He was the one who made us ride," Joo Ngan said.

Joo Pong married Ong Beng Kin and had a son, who worked as an IT programmer. After retiring from racing he worked as an insurance salesman, then as a contract lorry salesman, and from the early 2000s drove a taxi part-time in and around Shah Alam, where he lived. He received the taxi permit only after a 30-year wait, with help from then minister Nazri Aziz. His first taxi was written off in an accident; he bought another and kept driving. In 2014 he was still cycling three times a week for at least an hour.

In 2010 the family's close friend and fellow cyclist Daud Ibrahim died in a road accident near Rembau, a loss Joo Ngan said "broke us again".

Joo Pong spoke of cycling as his first love and of his generation as one that raced for pride rather than reward. "Cyclists these days are very lucky because everything is taken care of, from equipment, coaching, training stints, allowance and handsome rewards," he told the Malay Mail in 2014. "We competed for the love of the sport." He also credited exercise for his health in later life, saying that ten years off the bike had left him with aches that eased once he started riding again.

Ng Joo Pong was part of Malaysia's first Olympic cycling team in 1964 and one of the first Malaysians to win a medal at the Asian Cycling Championships. With his brother Joo Ngan and Daud Ibrahim, he belonged to the pioneering generation that rode without velodromes or modern equipment and laid the foundations that later produced Olympic medallists such as Azizulhasni Awang. His later struggles, from a 30-year wait for a taxi permit to years bedridden after strokes, made him a symbol of the need to care for former athletes, and YAKEB and the Malaysia Olympians Association made him a focus of their welfare and recognition work.

1963 Asian Cycling Championships, Kuala Lumpur: bronze, individual time trial; gold, 1,600 m team time trial. 1963: Malaya Open Championships winner (per Olympedia). 1965 SEAP Games: silver, 1,000 m individual time trial; silver, 10,000 m individual massed start. 1966 and 1968: cycling nominee, National Sports Awards (Anugerah Sukan Negara) Sportsman of the Year. 1967 SEAP Games: bronze, 4,000 m individual pursuit; bronze, 10,000 m massed start. 1970 Asian Games, Bangkok: bronze, 10,000 m mass start. Olympian at Tokyo 1964 and Mexico City 1968. 2025: OLY post-nominal citation from the World Olympians Association, presented by the Malaysia Olympians Association.

Several Malaysian outlets, including the New Straits Times, Stadium Astro and Scoop, describe him as a 1966 Asian Games gold medallist. Olympic Council of Asia medal tables list no Malaysian cycling medals at the 1966 Games, and Olympedia lists his Asian Games record as one bronze (1970).

Joo Pong was profiled by sports writer Tony Mariadass in the Malay Mail's "icons from the past" series in May 2014 ("Joo Pong slowing down the years"), and by the New Straits Times in July 2009 ("Love for cycling still strong despite freak accident"). In 2020 he appeared with fellow former national rider Conrad Talalla in episode 5 of RTM TV1's Aksi Roda. Free Malaysia Today's October 2025 feature "The visit that healed more than one heart" recorded the OLY presentation at his Shah Alam home. YAKEB TV and Astro Arena covered the foundation's visits and financial support in 2023 and 2025.

There are no documented controversies about his conduct. His record contains one widely repeated discrepancy: obituaries and older Wikipedia text credit him with Asian Games gold in 1966 in Bangkok, but the 1966 cycling medal tables show no Malaysian medallists, and the gold medals won by Malaysian cyclists at Bangkok were at the 1970 Games (Ng Joo Ngan in the road race and Daud Ibrahim in the 1,600 m mass start), where Joo Pong won bronze. Accounts of his lorry crash also differ, dated 1967 in a training ride by his own account and 1968 during the Gold Leaf race by Olympedia.