Pushing on from Rio

The Rio Olympics ended more than a month ago, but celebrations continue.

Malaysia performed worthily, but their celebrants must not go giddy over it.

The Southeast Asian (SEA) Games is the first step forward, but it is the lowest barometer of excellence.

At the 35th Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) General Assembly held on Sept 25 at Da Nang, Vietnam during the 5^th Asian Beach Games, the Rio Olympics performance analysis of OCA member countries was done by the OCA information and statistics committee headed by Zagdsuren Demchigjav (the president of the Mongolian Olympic Committee).

It was well researched and gave a realistic picture of sporting standards in Asia.

The report structured around the following areas: 1. Medal standings and general information; 2. Medal comparisons; 3. Sport by sport analysis and it reviews and key achievements; 4. Region by region analysis and its best sports events; 5. other key milestones and facts.

The committee used historical data sets to compare its improvement and other noticeable changes on the last 10 Olympics by its regions, gender and sports events.

The key findings included:

·        21 Asian nations won at least one medal at the Rio Games and 15 of them won gold medal.

·        Although Asian nations won one more gold medals than four years ago in London, it was still short of Beijing and Athens. Total of 68 gold medals accumulated 22.15% of available gold medal at Rio.

·        Asia captured 21.36% of total medals at Rio, around 2% better than London 2012.It lacks 5 medals from record breaking Beijing 2008.

·        In terms of medal quality, Asia won the highest number of bronze medals in their history at Rio with 86. 54 silver medals saw Asia at joint second highest results at the Olympics. Gold medal accounts for 22.15% of total medals won by Asian nations.

·        In archery, badminton, table tennis and weightlifting, Asian athletes won more medals than other continents.

·        Asia did not win any medals from 8 disciplines including triathlon, modern pentathlon and football.

·        Asia is leading continent in 10 disciplines, which won more than 30% medals or at least more than one gold medal.

·        Asian women has the best performance of the history, collecting 98 medals at Rio.

·        Total of 16 Olympic records and six world records were broken by Asian athlete in Rio.

Asian domination was manifested in sports like archery where six gold medals were won where Korean won five and Taiwan one, accounting for 50% of entire available medals.

In athletics, Asian won 13 medals including four gold but are still placed behind America, Europe and Africa and accounting to 4% of medals won in this sport.

In aquatics, Asian captured 30 medals including 12 gold to be ranked behind America and Europe. It accounts for 21 percent of medals available. Asia was most successful in diving and synchronised swimming. In diving China dominated winning seven gold medals from an available of eight. Singapore won their first ever gold medal in swimming.

In badminton, Asia is totally dominating since the sport was introduced at the Los Angeles. Asian athletes won 86% of medals available so far and captured 73% of total medals in Rio.

Three different countries – China, Indonesia and Japan – captured four of the five gold medal. In women’s singles, India won its first ever silver medal in any women’s category, while Malaysia secured three medals – but all silver.

In boxing, Asia secured 33 percent of available medals and ranked only behind Europe. In terms of gold medals, America captured one more gold medal than both Asia and Europe. Uzbekistan was the best team after winning three gold out of seven available.

In judo although Asia is the leading country in Olympics history, this year Europe won an impressive eight gold medals and total of 25 medals. Asia won 23 medals with 3 gold medals and accounts for 42% of total medals.

Other Asian dominating sports included table tennis, taekwondo and weightlifting.

In terms of region, East Asian countries dominated and captured 69% of total medals with an impressive 50 gold medals. Central Asia won 8 gold medals and a total of 31 medals and South East Asian countries secured 5 gold and a total of 18 medals. West Asia won five gold and a total of 13 medals while South Asia won only one silver medal.

Among the Asian nations who won their first ever gold medal at the Olympic Games include Vietnam, Singapore, Bahrain, Jordan and Tajikistan.

Malaysia won four silver medals (three badminton and one in diving) and a bronze from cycling for their best ever performance in the Games.

It is now time to concentrate on sports where Asians have a realistic chance to win medals and above all to double if not triple our efforts on development of these sports and expose our athletes to high level competition and training with countries who have already made a mark in them.

It’s time for long term planning and stop basking in reflected glory.

It is going to be a tall order for Malaysia to match our collection or better at the next Olympics in Japan in 2020 and unless, we start working today, all our overdone rejoicing would come to nought.

TONY is a sports

Journalist close to
four decades of experience
and is passionate about
local sports.
He can be reached at
tmariadass@gmail.com

Small sacrifice for nation's pride

Commentary

Salutations to the Rio Olympics-bound Muslim athletes who were abroad training for the greatest sports event in the world during the Ramadan month and now during the Hari Raya celebrations.

The athletes who are away are from cycling, diving, archery and weightlifting. The athletes who are involved in the Asean University Games to begin in Singapore on Sunday and the World Youth Athletics championship in Poland in a fortnight’s time are also in training and may have missed the celebrations too.

But it is a small sacrifice to make to do the nation proud.

The Olympics, especially, comes once every four years and only an elite group of athletes make the cut. They should be honoured to be at this top level in the country.

Since Malaysia (then Malaya) took part in their first Olympics at the 1954 Melbourne Games until the last London Games four years ago, we have had 272 male and 47 female athletes, for a total of 319 Olympians, compete in the Games. They are indeed a rare breed.

While many of the athletes in training during Ramadan and the celebrations have been positive about their sacrifice and are taking things in their stride, there are a couple who are not even overseas but have been giving out negative vibes about training, their personal well-being and the environment in Rio de Janeiro.

Athletes have to be mentally strong, especially on a stage like the Olympics and can expect no favours.

Competing in a world sports event is equivalent to going to battle. There is nothing fair in a battlefield, the environment may be alien and there will be challenges very step of the way.

What our athletes are sacrificing is nothing compared to what our security, health and fire personnel provide 24/7 for 365 days, and who have to be away from their families during the festivities time and again.

While we have a strong group of athletes, many of whom are true professionals with passion and dreams, there are a few who can adversely affect the morale of the contingent.

Some are even making excuses for themselves even before the battle has begun.

Malaysian athletes have been very lucky and well taken off compared with those around the world who have had to make tremendous sacrifices not only to make it to their Olympic team but also go on to win medals.

Sacrifice has become an alien word to some Malaysian athletes as they are well looked after in terms of training, coaches, facilities, overseas stints and even monetary rewards.

Our athletes need not look far for examples. Just look at the 10 refugee athletes from Syria, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia who will compete not just for Olympic glory but also for the dignity of the world’s 65.3 million displaced people.

In the face of unprecedented global displacement as a result of war, despotism and poverty, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made an unprecedented political statement to admit the first Refugee Olympic Team.

Imagine what these 10 athletes would have undergone in their countries and then fled or got rescued – endured war, lost family members, had no homes, stayed in camps and had no food or medicine.

These athletes are determined to give their best and even if they do not win medals, they would have competed in the world’s highest sports platform despite all the adversities they faced.

Malaysian athletes are truly blessed and must take their cue from these refugee athletes. After all, despite being a sports-friendly nation with full support from the government, we are still chasing the elusive gold medal.

Hopefully, the chase will end in Rio.

There are a few who are very determined to make that happen, such as badminton ace Lee Chong Wei. We have other sports like diving, cycling and archery which have potential medal winners.

But the contingent must make a concerted effort to keep the morale high throughout the Games and return from Rio with the best possible results.

Once again praise for all the athletes who have trained hard and do not want to return from the Olympics empty-handed. At worst, they could set new national records.

On that note, Selamat Hari Raya to all our Muslim athletes, coaches and officials.

TONY is a sports

journalist with more than
three decades of experience
and is passionate about
local sports.
He can be reached at
tmariadass@gmail.com

Twitter: @tmariadass​

New Year blues

Commentary

Level Field

Year in year out, the Malaysian sports fraternity make New Year resolutions and vow to take the level of sports to the next level.

But at the year end, we’re just faced with more disappointments than reasons to celebrate.

After each disastrous outings there is a big hue and cry and promises with promises made to make things better.

But have we really mastered anything at all?

Every year we find inept and good-time officials being the root cause of much of the disappointments.

In 2014, Malaysian outings at two major games – the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and Asian Games in Incheon – were disastrous.

After the London Games in 2012, there was talk of being better prepared.

The XXXI Olympic Summer Games 2016 is from 5th to 21st August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – seven months away.

The much talked about Podium programme for the Games which was supposed to be launched last year is still not in place. It is learnt that it will finally launched later this month. How much can be done in a short time to be fully prepared for the challenge ahead is left to be seen.

We will continue to bank on national shuttler Lee Chong Wei to deliver the elusive Olympic gold medal. The divers are hopefuls too.

Only five athletes – divers Ooi Tze Liang, Ng Yan Yee, Pandelea Rinong (bronze medallist last Games) and Nur Dhabitah Sabri and archer Khairul Annuar Mohamad – have qualified for Rio.

Two golfers are said to have qualified by Olympic Council of Malaysia has not made any official announcements yet.

The other athletes, namely our cyclists, archers and badminton players have up to July to book their berths.

But the chef-de-mission for the Games has already been named in Deputy President of Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), Tan Sri Dr. Ir. Mohamed Al Amin Abdul Majid.

And chances are another Olympics will come and pass with probably no significant achievement. This will be followed by the same old tune that the powers-that-be will start early preparations for the next Games in 2020 in Tokyo.

Short term and last minute preparations have been part and parcel of Malaysian sport.

We will continue to be short-changed unless we look at long term development programmes with at least two Olympic cycle in mind.

As for next year’s Sea Games which Malaysia is hosting, the Kita Juara Kita (We are champions) programme was been launched in September.

More than 842 athletes - 577 full-timers and 265 part-timers – from 37 sports have started training for the Games under the National Sports Council.

Malaysia emerged overall SEA Games champions for the first time when the 2001 edition was held here. That was the only time Malaysia had topped the medal standings in the biennial regional multi-Games since its inception in 1965.

It is hoped that this programme will kick start the ambition to aspire for higher standards, for starters to make an impact at the Asian level and not suffer a natural death after the 2017 KL Games.

Elsewhere in sports, there is more negativity than positiveness bogging Malaysian sports. 

Football went semi-professional in 1989, professional in 1994, and next season the league is going to be privatised – but has anything changed for the better?

The new trend of crowd violence, firing of flares and smoke bombs onto pitch is further destroying the image of Malaysian football.

We continue to slide in the Fifa rankings (currently 170 out of 204 - from 80 in 1993)

That two foreign coaches who failed to complete their stints with Johor DT and Sarawak respectively state level – Bojan Hodak and Rober Alberts (who had a stint as FAM’s technical director without much success but bringing down Malaysia’s ranking) are in consideration for national coaching job must be a joke.

If the two are the best from 70 candidates applied, one wonders what the quality of the coaches who applied was.

But if the selection panel were considering familiarity of Malaysian football and affordable wages, they might itself give the job to Datuk Ong Kim Swee.

If we are going to compromise on wages and settle for lesser coaches, it does not speak well of the ambitions to aim high.

If we cannot afford the best and hope that some miracle can happen with coaches “who have been floating in this region’ let us not waste the tax payer’s money.

Hockey had done well to inject new and young blood with my ex-internationals in the set-up and doing some good job to see the game rise again. But there is still some bickering and agendas by a few which is threatening to derail the game.

Athletics too has given some fresh hope with a young set of athletes on the rise, but blunders like verifying the new 100m record of 10.29 set Badrul Hisyam Abdul Manap ‘set’ at the 7^th Asean Schools Games in Brunei is not helping the sports one bit. There is also personality clashes which is bogging the sports.

In badminton, there is already move to discredit Badminton Association of Malaysia’s technical director Morten Forst after he has been here only for nine months. It is good that BAM have come forward to say that they stand by him.

This is Malaysian mentality where they expect to hire personnel today and want results overnight.

Doping has marred its ugly head with ten-time Mr Universe, Sazali Samad failing an out-of-competition doping test in September and has been slapped with a four year suspension.

Sazali is perfect gentlemen and a great sportsman, but he has been found guilty and has to pay the price. But to shower sympathy and make him a hero in his moment of shame, certainly does not send the right message to young budding sportsmen and women.

Cycling is left without a velodrome to train and it is certainly a case of poor planning. The Kuala Lumpur Velodrome in Cheras is set to be demolished this month as the land it sits on has been sold by Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to a private developer.

Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin suggested to build a replacement for the Kuala Lumpur Velodrome while waiting for the Class One velodrome in Nilai to be built and completed in two to three years’ time.

What about the Velodrome Raykat in Ipoh which is rotting away? Any chance of repairing it or is there politics involved here too?

Until and when we can get rid of all these ills from poor management, planning, wasting of funds, internal bickering, politicking, lack of professionalism, lack of development programmes, failing to educate athletes and fans and failing to have at heart of sports above everything else, Malaysian sports is going to continue to face disappointment after disappointment.

Of course there has been some good news last year where in badminton and squash Chong Wei and Datuk Nicol David showed that they made of sterner stuff to rise from their respective drop. The rise of Delia Arnold in squash and the many young athletes in athletics is a fresh breath of air

The Singapore Sea Game achievement where Malaysia won 62 gold medal must applauded but it must underlined it was at the lowest level of Games and it must be viewed in the right perspective.

Other sports who have given reason to be optimistic of Malaysian sports include badminton, archery, wushu and diving.

Malaysia are miles away from reaching it’s true potential in sports, and the sooner everyone gets their house in order and perform their duties professionally without any abuse of position, funds and management, there may better things to say when we review the year 2016.

Happy New Year and have a sporting year.

TONY MARIADASS is a sports

journalist with more than
three decades of experience
and is passionate about
local sports.
He can be reached at
tmariadass@gmail.com

Twitter: @tmariadass​​