Australia are aiming for a top-five finish in the 2016 Rio Olympics medal standings. Their performance at the Olympics has declined since they won a record 58 medals when they hosted the Games in Sydney in 2000, when they finished fourth. For a country with a smaller population than ours, the Australian Olympic Committee did not shy away from setting a lofty benchmark despite knowing they will face some serious scrutiny and questioning from their media if they can’t pull it off.
As Australia Olympic Committee president John Coates puts it: “If you are prepared to accept something less, then something less will happen. You might not always achieve what you aspire to, but I’d rather have a target that is up there than giving up before we start.” Well said indeed!
So why is it that the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) are “playing it safe” and have decided not to set any target for the Singapore SEA Games in June?
This may be acceptable if we are just sending a handful of athletes to the Olympics. But this is a regional sporting meet – and we are transporting more than 600 athletes (they will be going by bus) to Singapore. Is it prompted by the failure of the national contingents at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and Incheon Asian Games last year – when they could not equal the medal hauls from previous editions of respective Games?
Will our sports administrators be happy if our athletes return with 43 gold medals this time – the same number from the Myanmar SEA Games in 2013. The blame also lies with the national sports associations, who are guilty of quickly agreeing to this. Is this an acknowledgment of their lack of faith in their own athletes? Sports should be performance-based and athletes driven by targets. Just ask people like Tiger Woods, Lewis Hamilton or Rafael Nadal – none of them, or any of the world’s top athletes, for that matter – will settle for less at the end of the day.
Mind you, even our neighbours down south know it too – and they’ve announced that they are aiming for anything between 50 and 70 gold medals since the Games will be in their own backyard. And here we are, contented with just sending our athletes to participate with no specific targets. One can say this is to ease the pressure on them but, then, aren’t we sending the wrong message? That it’s okay to just go do your stuff and not worry whether you win a medal or not. But aren’t athletes are supposed do out their best – and hopefully that’s good enough for a medal.
No wonder Malaysian sports are struggling to find worthy replacements for the likes of Lee Chong Wei and Nicol David. Because we are contented with mediocrity – starting from the top.
- Brader Sports
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