Rethinking our reach for the elusive gold

THIS year was supposed to be it – the year Malaysia won a gold medal at the world’s biggest sporting event, the Olympic Games.

We even had an ambitiously named programme designed to help our national athletes do just that, “Road to Gold”, launched early last year.

Well, the road turned out to be not so much gold as bronze, as we all know after the Games ended last Sunday in Paris.

In badminton, Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik won a bronze in the men’s doubles while Lee Zii Jia did the same in the men’s singles.

We got close in some sports, with several participants beating personal bests and making it to the final. We saw heartbreak with a disqualification and a crash.

We didn’t see any gold.

Actually, we didn’t even improve on our last appearance, in Tokyo in 2020, where Malaysia worked up to a silver and a bronze.

The country has been participating before independence even, entering as Malaya for the first time in 1956.

We haven’t missed the Games since, so we’ve walked out with the Jalur Gemilang 17 times (not counting the Russian Olympics when we joined a Western-led boycott in 1980).

Our best achievement is four silvers and one bronze in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

This year, Team Malaysia sent 26 athletes to compete in 11 sports in Paris. It was a small contingent because our athletes struggled to qualify on merit for the Games, with four given Universality Places (slots given to countries with small contingents) and one taking an unused quota spot.

Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh has apologised for Malaysia’s dismal showing in Paris but also pointed out colourfully in a BFM interview that: “Sports is not like baking cookies; 20 minutes in the oven and you can see the result.

“You know, the ecosystem and athletes take years to develop.”

Will we go into the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 half-baked?

Arguably, the Road to Gold programme was the first concentrated focus on getting athletes ready specifically for the Olympics.

Apart from analysing why it didn’t live up to expectations, what can we do differently to prepare for 2028?

Surely our lack of success can’t be because our athletes aren’t as motivated as every other sportsman and woman at the Games – at that level of competition, everyone is hungry for success.

So, what is it?

It’s not our size.

Countries with much smaller populations have won gold.

In Paris, the Cinderellas came from St Lucia and Dominica, population less than 200,000 and less than 75,000, respectively.

Do we need to go back to the drawing board and devise a different way to “bake” our athletes?

Perhaps invest more in sports at the individual school level, through district and state levels, before focusing on a national level?

Or perhaps we need to cast a wider net?

Are we searching every nook and cranny of the country for talent regardless of race, colour, or socioeconomic position?

What do we have to do to see a Malaysian standing on the podium to receive a gold medal while the Negaraku plays?