Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Someone goofed up!

Kudos to international debutant Aricco Jumith for his gold medal winning effort in the Commonwealth Games weightlifting event in New Delhi on Tuesday, but was he representing Malaysia or Sabah.
Aricco's attire during the competition bore a Sabah flag!
I had a call from New Delhi in the wee hours this morning from an Indian sports journalist asking me when Sabah gained its independence from Malaysia!
The picture of Aricco wearing the attire with the Sabah flag appeared in at least one newspaper this morning in Malaysia. This is the picture below taken by AFP.



 Double joy........Aricco and silver medalist Naharuddin Mahayudin in the official Malaysian attire after the prize-giving ceremony. (NST pix)

Athletes' attire are supplied by either their national sports association or the National Sports Council (NSC).
For multi-sports Games, it is usually NSC who supply the attire.
Someone has to give an explanation here why Aricco was wearing an attire bearing the Sabah flag.
It has happened before and the usual the explanation would be that the athlete is not comfortable with the official attire or did not have the sizes with the entire supplied by NSC or their national association and prefer to use their own entire.
But would sewing on a Malaysian flag on the personal attire be very difficult!
I am not against Sabah or the athlete being patriotic towards his State, but when representing the nation, the patriotism should be to the nation.
With so many official present in Delhi, especially from NSC, one wonders how they overlooked Arrico's State flag on his attire.
Is there an explanation forthcoming?
And it is not making mountain out of a mole hill.
Agreed Aricco is a Sabahan and is proud to be one, and Sabah is part of Malaysia.
But it is the national team competing in an international Games and participants are represented by the nation and not by the state or county of a nation.
It all about be professional!
Aricco can by all means carry a Sabah and Malaysian flag! But the Malaysian flag has to be displayed...period!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tony, lets not make a mountain out of a mole hill. Aricco is a Sabahan and is proud to be one, Sabah is part of Malaysia.
It is not like Aricco is wearing a Mongolian or a Thailand body suit. What matters is at the prize presentation ceremony he donned the Malaysian track top and the Malaysian National anthem was played.
I am sure our brothers in Sabah are proud of one of its illustrious son's achievement.

tonymariadass said...

And as usual, another Anonymous comment!

Anonymous said...

Tony,

Sabahans are very proud of Aricco's achievement.
It is the true Sabahan's spirit to compete and give his best even if he has not been provided the national sports wear that is provided to the other athletes

What is important is that every athlete representing the nation must be given the same importance in every aspect no matter from which state he comes from.

Only God knows how to apply the truly 1 Malaysia concept and to experience this concept on earth..... you only need to work with the sabah people.

I have spoken to the relevant ( Sabah) authority on your report and we hope matters will resolve soon

Dr. Mariam George

Alfred Monjun said...

Tony,

Technically, he was competing under the relevant Malaysian body governing the national team contingent and hence he should carried the Malaysian flag and not the Sabahan flag.

Politically, you will argue that he should also do likewise. However, allow me to put in another perspective for consideration. UK is can be regarded as a country, but Scotland, as a member of the UK competes as a national entity in the CG. In the actual substance of the formation of Malaysia, Sabah was also supposed to be an autonomous entity equivalent to a national entity.

As such, as a fellow Sabahan, I fully support his decision to adorn his national flag, the flag of Sabah to glory. Given the opportunity, I would not have done it any other way.

Datuk Balwant Singh Kler said...

Please do not blame the poor kampong boy. We always have the team manager and it is his/her duty to make sure all the athletes when leaves the Games village have with them the proper uniform and equipment. May I know did the team manager checked all these? NO, if only he has done it the mistake would have ben corrected at the Games village itself.

We Sabahans are always proud to be Malaysian, there is no question about it. I have been team mananger and coach to our National teams and before we leave the viillage I always make sure everything is in order. Therefore please do not balme the boy and hide by saying I was not there, if that the case why accept the post or only want to go as tourist!!

Anonymous said...

agreed with you dato balwant and tony dont just you hate nsc so much that you try to paint red our their door.

please be rational and not judgmental at the same time.

sports fan

Anonymous said...

Tony,

As I read the Oct 9 ,11.50am comment and that published in Bernama news that Aricco took the wrong bag etc etc -- it makes us think how this poor sabah boy has performed well despite all this reasons......

This is examplary of how strong psychologically he is to perform against all odds. THIS IS HIS IQ, EQ, PQ, SQ that is INHERITED and some areas that were adapted through training at home to face the outside world.Where do we begin Tony, we begin...... at HOME.We are what we are today and how we behave towards people because of HOME and FAMILY

Do we need to say more on psychology / mental preparedness for athletes......Food for thought, Tony

Aricco's actions and success speaks louder than words and ALL SABAHANS wish him well in his future endeavours


There are many more talented young and up and coming stars athletes for Malaysia- We need to go and seek them and strengthen our pool of athletes