Gold mission at LA28

After a rather dismal outing at Paris Olympics, a review is needed to determine which sports get the bulk of the funding.

THE hard work must start now.

Paris 2024 may have ended with Malaysia now having the dubious honour of being the country with the most medals but without a gold. But this is no time to lament over what might have been. We need to look forward to the next Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

There already should be plans in place for the various sports organisations at the national level to identify and activate potential gold medal winners. Any delays could prove costly as our rivals will also be doing the same thing.

Our Asean neighbours are already ahead of us, both the Philippines and Indonesia bagged two golds each while Thailand has a gold medal in Paris.Singapore with a bronze this time, can still boast of a gold in the 2016 edition.

But even though we once again failed to nab that elusive gold medal, the verdict on our 26-member group of athletes who represented the country was generally positive.

“Encouraging performances”, “punching above their weight”, “gallant defeat”, “put up a good fight”, etc.

The above platitudes are not plucked from the various social media sites. No, these are actual quotes from Malaysian officials who attended the Games. One must wonder if these officials are in touch with reality or living in a fantasy world?

I am in no way belittling our sportspeople. At the very highest stage, it is never easy to compete and attempt to get a gold, let alone any medal.

Like most Malaysians, I was riveted to the TV screen watching the efforts of our shuttlers and cyclists especially. Yet, despite their best efforts, they fell at the final hurdle.

We have to stop this culture of talking up athletes who have tried their best yet failed. This culture of rewarding mediocrity must end. And so too this cycle of officials giving themselves a pat on the back after major tournaments.

Enough. Because ultimately our sportsmen and our sports officials are judged by honours won, not by gallant defeats.

The focus now must shift to 2028 and politicians, especially those who have been running sports associations, should step down and bow out gracefully. Get qualified professionals or former athletes to do the job.

The Sports Minister’s recent Facebook posting on the key things she wants to do before completing her term is encouraging if it is seen through.

Basically, Hannah Yeoh would like to place the right people in the right positions. Although she qualified this by saying elected positions like Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) or Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) are out of her jurisdiction.

“In my short time as minister, I have appointed a lot of key former athletes to help me. It is my belief that former athletes understand sports and the needs of athletes. In the Road to Gold committee, I have three key former athletes to assist me – Lee Chong Wei, Nicol David and Mirnawan Nawawi,” she wrote.

This is a step in the right direction. In fact, there’s nothing wrong in the minister pushing for Nicol to be appointed national contingent chef de mission (CDM) for LA28. Nicol was deputy CDM for the Paris Games and rather than appointing a sports administrator or a politician as head as we’ve done in the past, the minister should be bold enough to push for Nicol’s appointment four years ahead of the next Games.

Nicol’s appointment especially would be welcomed by the squash fraternity because the racquet sport is finally going to be an official Olympic event in the 2028 instalment.

Millions have been spent on the Road to Gold programme with negligible results, but we cannot end this initiative now. There needs to be a review though as to which sports get the bulk of the funding. Badminton and cycling for sure continue to be medal prospects but a sizeable amount of funds must be provided to the Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM) also.

Malaysian squash champion S. Sivasangari has already cracked the top 10 this year and come LA28 has the potential to be the country’s first gold medal winner if her progress continues as planned.

For Nicol this will be a bittersweet moment because at the peak of her game she was unsurpassed and won numerous honours but was denied an almost certain Olympics gold medal because squash was not an official Olympic sport.

But Nicol inspired many a Malaysian youngster with her exploits and it would be poetic justice for her if, as CDM for LA28, she were to witness one of her proteges reaching the summit.

Sports truly unites this nation and that’s the one thing all of us can agree on. Its importance cannot be quantified but sporting glory is what we all crave.

There’s still a long way to go for our gold medal dream to become reality, but the journey starts now.