04 Jan LET’S MOVE ON FROM THE SEA GAMES

I still remember clearly somewhere in the mid 90’s when our fourth then and current Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir launched a famous campaign which was called “Wawasan 2020”. It caused a national stir and widespread coverage from the media.

It was an idea that was fresh and full of innovation. All of us at that point of time were fascinated and to be honest, were looking forward with great expectations to the year 2020.

We were told that the campaign will transform Malaysia into a fully developed country with stable economic growth, a world-class education system, political balance and so on.

But when the global financial crisis hit us in 2007-2010, former Prime Minister, Dato’ Sri Najib declared that “Wawasan 2020” was no longer viable and launched another campaign – Transformasi Nasional 2050, with the same mission but this time Malaysia was to be catapulted into a fully developed country by 2050.

Fast forward to now, we are fast approaching another decade but sadly, we are no closer to achieving any of those goals. Back then we were dreaming of our very own flying car or the infamous floating hoverboard, fuelled by the imagination of the Back to The Future franchise.

As the world moves forward and beyond our imagination, one thing that really worries me the most is our overall sports performance.

With only months away before the Tokyo Olympics, time is not on our side as we seek to bring home that elusive maiden gold medal for Malaysia.

To begin with, it was not a good start for Malaysia this year as our main hope, Dato’ Lee Chong Wei  announced his retirement from badminton due to illness. It was a big blow for us since Chong Wei was seen as our best bet after winning three consecutive silver medals in the men’s singles.

But we have to respect his decision, I am pretty sure this was a  difficult decision for him as well to say farewell to something that you are really passionate about. But on the positive side, this will open the door for our junior players to step up and follow his footsteps to the very top of the pinnacle.

Another low point in Malaysian sport this year was when our national men’s hockey team missed the chance to qualify for the Olympics Tokyo 2020. After missing out the golden chance for an automatic spot last year at Asian Games when we lost to Japan in the final match, the Malaysian Hockey Confederation  (MHC) took drastic action by hiring an experienced coach, Roelant Oltmans to lead the line. Coach Roelant at that time had about a year to assemble a team for the final push to the Olympic.

It was not meant to be for Roelants and the hockey team were shown  the door by Great Britain in a two-leg match during the FIH Hockey Qualifiers. They were trashed 9-3 on the aggregate and again Malaysian failed to qualify for the Olympic after featuring in Olympics Sydney 2000.

It is time for MHC to look back on what went wrong for the hockey team especially for the men’s senior performance. Players were given exposure and proper training but still, we were unable to perform well at the big stage. I believe we should consider a different approach or set a realistic target and not to mention proper guidance to the young talents who one day will represent the country as well.

But it’s not all doom and gloom in 2019. Let’s start off with the number one sport in the country which is football. After taking over the role as the head coach last year, Tan Cheng Hoe was handed a very tough task to lead Harimau Malaya in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifying round. There were ups and downs throughout the campaign but the most memorable moment was after our national team managed to secure a back-to-back win against Indonesia and Thailand. Malaysia is now sitting in the second spot with 9 points and behind the Group G leader, Vietnam with 11 points.

Overall the national team performance was pretty good. We showed that we have the fighting spirit and managed to outplay our opponents with the right tactical when needed, but to be honest, it is still a long way for us to qualify for the World Cup. I assume most of us will agree with me on this. Malaysia invested so much money in the grassroots program but there is no instant success in football especially when you need to develop a very good talent base for our national team.

The key here is to be consistent and patience for our development plan to bear fruit. Perhaps with the talent that we have and the program that currently we are running at the grassroots level, it will change our fortunes and perhaps we will play in the World Cup one day and I am there to witness it myself.

It is a whole new story for our national cyclist Azizulhasni Awang who is also known as “The Pocket Rocketman”. The Terengganu-born cyclist was crowned as the champion in his favorite keirin event where he claimed the gold medal at the New Zealand-leg of the UCI Track World Series. First of all, I am very impressed on how Azizul managed to move on from SEA Games and gunning for the event like World Series and Olympics. For me, he had set an example and other athletes should follow his footsteps. Azizul without a doubt will be one to watch at the Olympics next year and he has the potential to deliver the gold medal for us.

Then, we look back at the recent 30^th edition of the South East Asian (SEA) Games held in the Philippines. Malaysia ended the campaign with 56 Gold/ 57 Silver/ 71 Bronze, well short of the 70 Gold medal target.

Nevertheless, there were also a lot of positives for the Malaysian contingent. Firstly, Malaysian sprinter Haiqal Hanafi proved that he was the fastest men in Southeast Asian where he was crowned as the winner of 100m men’s final at New Clark City Athletics Stadium. In the final, he clocked a time of 10.35s to retain the gold in which Khairul Hafiz Jantan won in the previous edition of the games in Kuala Lumpur.

Not to forget, National Gymnast Farah Ann Abdul Hadi became the darling of the contingent when she bagged three individual gold medals. This edition of SEA showed that our gymnastics the squad were the kings and queens of the region, winning a total of nine gold medal exceeding the target of six gold medals that had been set by National Sports Council.

Next, Dr. Yew Weng Keng, a Ph.D. holder in electronic engineering can call himself the King of Hearthstone in South East Asia where he defeated his opponent from Thailand 3-1 to clinch the gold medal for Malaysia. With the gold medal he won, Dr. Yew now is the first gold medallist in e-sports game since this sport made its debut in this edition of SEA Games.

In badminton, Malaysia were unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain the gold medal in men’s and women’s team events as they settled for silver and bronze medals respectively.

However, they performed extraordinarily to clinch three gold medals in individual final events through Lee Zii Jia (men’s singles), S.Kisona (women’s singles) and also Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik (men’s doubles).

Despite our best efforts, our contingent sit at 5^th position for overall medal tally. Some of us may had disappointed with the performance of certain sports that had been underperformed on this edition in the Philippines.

Ministry of Youth and Sports decision to allow Sukan Malaysia (SUKMA) winners to participate in the next SEA Games in Hanoi may bear a fruit where the youths can expose their talent into more competitive tournament.

Personally, I think that our athletes should focus more and look beyond the SEA Games. Just look at Azizulhasni Awang who is now aiming for the big tournament and world championship. Allowing the SUKMA winners to participate in SEA Games is a wise move from the ministry. So, let’s move on and focus on the next agenda, Olympic Tokyo 2020.