Listening to a post mortem of our Malaysian squad in Beijing by a bunch of sports writers was really a terrible and arduous chore to do. Their amateurish and childish observations are not helping anyone including the athletes to better understand themselves. Post mortem is done to dissect the performance of an organisation or individuals including athletes. It is done for the purpose of identifying the causes of failure and simultaneously trying to offer solutions to overcome such failures or problems.
Sadly, those bunch of amateurish and irresponsible newsmen decided to blame our Malaysian athletes' physical conditions as the culprit and the cause of their failures in Beijing. To add to the insult, they have the audacity of saying that because of their physical size, therefore it is impossible for our athletes to achieve success at international level. They even compared Michel Phelps, the American swimmer legend with Bryan Nickson Lomas just to prove their shallow amateurish and irresponsible observations.
We share their disappointment but to give an irresponsible observations behind so-called post mortem is unjust and deserved stern admonition. We have in the Olympics countless athletes who shared similar physical attributes with Malaysian athletes but they managed to make it to the podium. Park Tae Hwan, Kosuke Kitajima and Li Na are just few Asian athletes who made it to the centre stage with their sterling performances in Beijing. These athletes who have more or less similar physical attributes with us managed to prove that size does not matter, determination certainly is.
Look at those Chinese divers, some of them are chubbier and possibly heavier than our and the Western divers but they once again emerged as champions of all champions. Look at those skinny long distance African runners who are accustomed to severe hot climate but they managed to prove that such is not a barrier for them to grab golds in Beijing, which has more timid weather.
Wong Choon Han who is ranked lower than Hidayat managed to beat him and they possess more or less physical attributes. Wong Mei Chu has in the past became giant killer by defeating higher ranking Chinese shuttler and again they are of similar physical attributes. How these players managed to defeat better players? Is it because of their body sizes? Maybe but it is only a part of countless other more significant factors like determination and patriotism.
Once upon a time, Malaysian football is famous because of their achievements. We even managed to qualify to the 1980 Olympics. That is the time when Japan and Korea come to Malaysia to learn our secret success recipe. Now, we become the admirers and the disciples of those two giants of not only Asian but the world's football. Is it because they have literally grown into giants? That ridiculous but not so according to those so called media post mortem. If what they suggest is the truth then why and how on earth do Korea managed to secure fourth placing well ahead of the mighty England, Argentina just to name a few? Is it again because they have transformed into giants when they play against European teams who are literally giants in size? They are still Asians who are physically small and short compared to those Western players, but they are giants mentally - determination and courage are the keys to their success not their physical size
Once Malaysia is an agrarian nation but suddenly in the 80's we emerged as a new industrialised nation by having heavy and technological based industries. Now we have Proton and Perodua which have become main players in the automotive industry. Suddenly we become well known not because of our pint size bodies but because of our large brains. Are we saying that we cannot become what we are today because of our body size?
Hiding behind the post mortem banner and suggesting illogical and in fact sinful observations is an abhorrence and deserved severe reprimand. Blaming our physical size seems to defy what the Almighty has created. We are what we are since the Holy Quran has correctly and vividly points out that human is the best creation as we are bestowed the the thinking quality. Hence, we should think ways to become better using whatever we have. Micheal Phelps for instance is greatly assisted by the special suit he is wearing and I suppose Lomas can swim faster since he's lighter than Phelps. Instead of blaming the obvious which is not the real cause those newsmen should be more responsible and look at the problem with the sacred intention to help not to make it worse.
These kinds of shallow thinking and short cut mindset are the real culprit behind the drastic deterioration of Malaysian sports. This typical yet ruinous thinking will not bring us to greater height. Being close to new and recent scientific discoveries should maker them pragmatic but alas they choose backward conservative and narrow thinking.
"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance" - Samuel Johnson.
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