By CC Pung, J.P
Tokoh Wartawan Sabah and FT Labuan.
China won 40 golds at the Paris Olympics.
It doesn’t take a genius to guess that a lot of its athletes fell short, may be by only whiskers, or may even by done in by questionable rules or officials.
They must have had some complaints or grievances as anyone who tried hard but fell short of a medal.
But I haven’t read a single post in social media whining about it and blame officials entirely for their failings.
Over to my beloved Malaysia. We won two bronze medals, both in badminton.
We were placed 80th on the medal table.
Diver Nur Dharbita came last in the finals of 3m springboard.
Credit to her, she did not ‘attribute’ her results to any one.
It’s some Malaysian swimming officials who were trying to blame some competition officials for allegedly mess up the the diving line-up and timing which, they claimed affected Dharbitah.
My take?
If indeed there had been some mix-up, everyone of the 12 finalists would have been affected.
No?
Then there was this keyring cyclist who won silver at the last Olympics in Tokyo.
He was disqualified for having moved ahead of the pacing motorcycle.
It was a clear breach of competition rules.
Instead of admitting to it, the cyclist gave a extraordinarily length ‘rationale’ of how he came to have breached the rules.
He ‘blamed’ a fellow competitor (a French) and alleged that the pacing motorcycle was moving at speed different from what he (our cyclist) experienced.
Obviously these allegations were not true or factual enough to primpt a Malaysian protest.
But that didn’t stop a Malaysian minister from public protesting the disqualification.
In a way, he’s trying to convince me to believe him rather than give credit to the Olympic officials.
And while this minister was blowing his out of tune trumpet, a former sports minister, an Oxford-educated condescending Mr know-all, alleged double standards in the disqualification, and questioned why the other cyclist escaped punishment.
With just two bronzes from Paris and still chasing the illusive gold, Malaysia should acknowledge that it has still some way to go in sports and that even territories of China – Taiwan and Hong Kong – each with only a fraction of Malaysia’s population- are way higher on the medal scale.
Whining and blaming will not raise our sports excellence.
Identifying and acknowledging our problems is a better attitude.
Zafrul and KJ (you know who are), when Malaysia and China established diplomatic ties about 50 years ago, my parents were still regularly sending over-the-counter medicines and miscellaneous clothing items to their relatives in Hainan.
At that time China was just warming to the national cry to end its ‘century of humiliation”.
Unless years of enjoying malay privileged have blunted your instinct and common sense, I believe you know the ills besieging Malaysia, including our pathetic sporting scene.
You joined the Olympic chorus to show that you still matter. But that’s really just so trivial.
I’m quite sure you know what’s really important.
You know very well that nothing you said about the Olympics mattered. It’s at best a fart.
Editor: The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the talantang.com
