Para athletes disprove Hannah’s “political instability” bombast FMTNews
The rousing performances of Malaysia’s athletes at the recent Asean Para Games have sent the “political instability” rhetoric of youth and sports minister Hannah Yeoh into a tailspin. The athletes applied brutal reality to any notion that political uncertainty had caused the decline of sport in the country.
The heroes at the Para Games in Cambodia scooped 50 gold medals to surpass the target of 33, effectively silencing Yeoh and her legion of excuse-makers. The national contingent proved that the slogan Demi Malaysia came from their hearts, and foiled another tortured variation of the “political instability” theme. They also grabbed 38 silver and 34 bronze medals to finish fourth in the medal standings, putting them in a good position to keep national pride flying high at the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, China, in October.Deeply depressing also was the rant of Yeoh and company to swat off criticism thrown at them. Yeoh had invited ridicule when she went into great detail about how political instability had caused Malaysia’s failure at the SEA Games in Cambodia.And the menace of ‘look the other way’ leadership became an annoyance. Did Malaysia have great sporting achievements in the Olympics, Asiad and SEA Games when there was political stability? To be sure, none of the politicians or sports ministers during the period of instability had stood in the way of funding sports. Malaysian sport has flopped, mainly because the national sports associations lack the force to manage and develop their respective sports, and have no hesitation in giving in to political governance. It has taken athletes with disabilities to tell the authorities that excellence in sports is all about the will of the athlete, the resolve of the association, and the drive of the coach. We must assume Yeoh and the rest have now realised Malaysia’s able-bodied athletes remain by the sporting wayside because of a scattergun strategy. Some big decisions have been taken to restore Malaysia as a sporting nation, but they now need to actually start getting it right.Here is evidence of the general malaise befelling a national sports association. In February, Malaysian discus thrower Irfan Shamsuddin recorded his season’s best of 59.71m at the Malaysian Athletics Federation track and field meeting. On June 8, he hurled the discus to 58.44m at the Hungarian GP Series in Budapest, but his latest throw is listed in the World Athletics database as only his season’s best. Why? Because the MAF failed to submit the top performances of its athletes and results of local meetings to WA. Heinrich Hubbeling, the German statistician and compiler of Asian athletics said the MAF was to blame for the omission of Irfan’s mark from WA records. In a Facebook post, Hubbeling said: “Unfortunately, results from competitions in Malaysia this season are not recognised in the WA database because MAF is among the federations that don’t adhere to the policy of forwarding results by their best athletes. “It’s a pity for the athletes, and a shame for the officials of such non-cooperating federations when their best performances are not valued.”The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
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