Pressurised cooker?
What is pressure?
Pressure is an everyday part of our working lives. Philosopher Thomas Carlyle said, “No pressure, no diamonds,” suggesting that, in manageable doses, it can energise and motivate one to perform and achieve.
Too much of it, however, can tip the balance the other way. The trick to making pressure work for you, and not against you, is to find the “sweet spot” between having too little and too much of it.
However we should not confuse pressure with stress – they are quite different. Pressure can be a very positive quality.
Experiencing it, yet feeling calm and in control, can spur people on to achieve great things. It’s only when it keeps building and that sense of calm and order is replaced by a feeling of being out of control that stress happens, and has a wholly negative effect.
Thus, it did come as a surprise when Malaysian Chef De Mission to Hangzhou Asian Games, Datuk Chong Kim Fatt, said that announcing only the gold medal target will put additional pressure on the athletes and it will affect their performance.
Instead, the Malaysian contingent for the Games, starting from Saturday till Oct 8, have been set a total medal target of 27 medals, for the contingent of 289 athletes, who will compete in 22 out of the 40 sports.
Chong had said the decision was made after taking into account the views of all the parties involved, including Japan’s Nippon Sport Science University, which has forged a close collaboration with the National Sports Council (NSC).
While National Sports Council athlete division director Jefri Ngadirin said such a move (not announcing specific targets) was adopted by many other countries, including world powers like Japan and Australia as well as Southeast Asian countries like Singapore and the Philippines.
While the move received heavy criticism from several quarters, the move actually had its pros and cons and need to be viewed accordingly.
To say it will remove the pressure from the athletes certainly cannot be accepted because every athlete know for a fact that competing in sports, especially at high level, natural comes with pressure and they have manage it to become better athletes.
Besides, there is the National Sports Institute (NSI), with their sports physiologists who are supposed to help the athletes if they underwent any sort of pressure.
Obviously, the targets to be set are not picked from thin air, but after careful analyse of the particular athlete or team’s current performance or against current results of opponents, thus is realistic targets.
Also all National Associations had met with up with NSC recently to give a realistic target based on the current form and results of their athletes or team.
Thus, NSC already have the targets on their table.
So the question to be asked now is who is being protected from pressure – the national associations and NSC – to deliver the projection?
Some sports like hockey, sepak takraw and track cycling, have come out boldly to predict their gold medal target and this only goes to show they believe in themselves and are not concerned over the so called ‘pressure’.
Then again, some countries including European countries, do not predict the actual medal targets not because of worry of the pressure, but feel that injuries, form on that day, falling sick on that day and surprise performances of opponents, could throw their prediction out of the window.
Then, I have heard personally some European coaches and officials saying that if they can predict gold medals, then why compete.
Thus, whether to predict gold medals or not, is subjective, for personally reasons or associations and authorities shying away from putting themselves accountable and certainly not because of putting pressure on athletes.
But that Chong, in the same breath had said that they will be banking on diving, badminton, track cycling, equestrian, hockey, karate, archery, athletics, sailing, sepak takraw, squash, wushu and e-sports to deliver the medals, only shows they have targets but were playing safe not to identify where they expect the gold to come from.
Then it said that Malaysia have already “lost” 12 medals (won from the previous edition in Indonesia) due to certain events not being held this time in Hangzhou.
Statements like these, certainly look like they preparing themselves with ready-made excuses, if they return with a poor showing.
Malaysia should be striving to excel at the Asian level and not prepare themselves with excuses.
We have to start aiming high instead of beating our chests with performances at the regional Sea Games.
Malaysia, had set a seven-gold target for the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, managed to return home with 36 medals – seven golds, 13 silvers and 16 bronzes.
Away from the Asian Games, the recent resignation of football coach E. Elavarasan, despite leading the Malaysian Under-23 team to the AFC Under-23 Asian Cup, has also been linked to pressure after nitizens called for the coach resignation.
So was it pressure that forced Ella, as he is fondly known, to resign?
If one knows Elavarasan, he is not one who succumb to pressure but one who strives on pressure to deliver.
The Tamil name Elavarasan translated in English, is Prince or Son King. And true to his name, he is a warrior.
Obviously, there is more to his resignation than the eyes meet.
Afterall, he did not ask for the national U23 job, as the national assistant coach to national coach Kim Pang-gon, was asked to take charge so that the junior team is trained the same as the national team so there is a synergy between the two.
Also, Elavarasan only took over the team in September last year, replacing Australian Brad Maloney and in the short period, his performance should be judged fairly. It was inherited squad he had and with due respect to the players, we also have to look the quality of the squad and their improvement.
Maybe the powers to be did not stand by him, when criticisms were hurled at him.
Only Ella and FA of Malaysian can answer this question.
So pressures comes in many forms, and managing it and using it to motivate oneself to deliver is what makes a better man and not hiding behind it.
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