Photo Credit: NajibRazak.com
Written by: Oh Tong Keong
Kwong Wah Yit Poh, August 23, 2016
Even though Malaysia did not win any gold medal in this year’s Olympic Games, for our country four silver and another bronze medal are the biggest breakthrough in history, we should be grateful to our athletes for their hard work.
During the Brazil Olympics, I have witnessed the true unity of people of all races, regardless of the ethnicity of the athletes in action; everyone would cheer for them, making no distinction between “you” and “me” and also irrespective of skin colour.
There was another example which showed unity among Malaysians. When Goh Liu Ying and Chan Peng Soon lost to Indonesian pair in badminton mixed doubles final match, two Malay dailies mentioned in their headlines “only an Olympic silver medal” and “disappoint millions of Malaysians”, the headlines had incurred the wrath of the people at large. Our countrymen including many Malays had protested against the headlines and demanded an apology from the two Malay dailies.
The two Malay dailies Berita Harian and KOSMO had on Thursday displayed on their front page the controversial headlines, KOSMO mentioned in its headline “Peng Soon-Liu Ying disappoint millions of Malaysians”, many outraged netizens had posted on the official Facebook #Kosmo Perlu Minta Maaf (KOSMO must apologize).
This shows that regardless whether Malay, Chinese or Indian, all had condemned the two dailies for playing with racial sentiments, this had once again displayed the all of one heart of all the races, sure enough, just like the proverb which says that sport can unite people.
As can be seen, we have won three silver medals through badminton in this year’s Olympic Games especially the breakthrough in men’s doubles is a biggest surprise. In fact, Malaysia had already been the world badminton power since 40s and 50s in the last century; we were the champion in the first Thomas Cup tournament.
With sixty years’ experience, we have already developed sound mechanism to train badminton players. Generally, any primary school student who has the talent on playing badminton will be recruited in the National Badminton Academy to undergo long period of training to lay the foundation for future prospect on the game. The National Badminton Academy had nurtured many talents who became champion, and the government had also thrown in a lot of resources in training programme including engaging foreigners as badminton coach.
However, in terms of hiring foreign badminton coach, I have different opinion. Badminton has 60 years of history in Malaysia; we have absolutely enough talents to be our national coach. I do not oppose to the foreign coach, but Badminton Association of Malaysia should give priority to the locals. I do not believe that we can’t find outstanding local coaches; don’t forget that Lee Chong Wei was coached by Misbun before.
This clearly shows that Malaysia has never lacked of talents to be coaches, the foreign moon may not always be rounder. On the hiring of badminton coach, priority should be given to local people. Moreover, only the locals will really care about the long term development of the game, foreign coach will leave upon expiry of their contract.
Anyhow, the Olympiad this year had embodied unity of the people, I hope this spirit could be continued, so that we can say no to unscrupulous politicians who would tear apart racial unity for own political gain.
This time round, we managed to win four silver and one bronze medal; this is the biggest breakthrough in our history since independent. I opined that some netizens should not make any unduly criticism, irrespective of whether they had won any medal, we should give all our athletes a big applause.
I believe, four years later in Tokyo’s Olympic Games, Malaysia will be able to achieve greater results.