I’ve not really been following the current Asian Games at Doha Qatar. Other than the occasional tuning-in of the radio and conversing with friends, I would not then have known some of the results. As usual, pathetically Singapore Athletics Association (SAA) sent only one representative to the game. She’s a high jumper.
“Go Michelle!” … Nah I dunno her, I’m just rooting for her.
Talk about being ‘cheap’ SAA. Right right, the association would rightly claim to justify your place for the game, the athletes must meet the qualifying mark, has been performing well with recent credible results locally & abroad, blah blah yada yada yada.
So what if our national athletes fall short of the qualifying mark. It’s not like their results are totally way off right. How are our athletes to progress to the next level if they are denied their places in top notch competitions such as the Asian Games.
To get such competition experiences is hard to come by, considering you don’t have these world class meets everyday, err hallo! I’m not talking about sending some crappy ‘kucing kurap’ athletes to the games but the least send our elites ones.
If you look at the worst Asian Games performances ever, I think 99% of us would be hard-pressed to beat a single one of them, haha.
Yes it’s great that the association have kids development program but where’s our senior athletes. Most of the them coming out of the junior squad going into the senior ranks are so disillusioned by some of the assocation promises and dealings that one by one have ‘retired’ from the scene.
Timothy Yeo, Hiranisha Rasimudin, M Maran, Hong Jinsheng, Nurulaini Ariffin, Jairajkumar Jeyabal, to name a few, even the recent troubles with the China throwers. All are talented promising athletes, but where are they now.
The SAA is making headlines for all the wrong reason in-fact. When is the last time you’ve read in the papers that our athletes actually are making ‘waves’. Please exclude the 4x100m bronze SEA Games medal or our James Wong performance. The 4x100m team won that medal because Indonesia was disqualified and while James Wong is somewhat naturally talented. He eats nails for breakfast.
Hey I’m not even close to the association nor am I a national athlete, yet I can see it in plain sight that our association has alot of issues. Imagine that, me an outsider is able to observe all this. So ‘malu’. So ‘malu’ of our very own association.
So is the association to blame for our national team’s overall failings. Or do we blame a range of people through the team whose commitment and attitude could be questioned as they have failed to live up to expectation.
Or maybe I’m all wrong from the start, misinterpreting all the above that I’ve mentioned. Or just maybe I’m not wrong however and all my assumptions above was correct.
Whatever your opinion of my entry here, I’ll tell you one thing for sure.
I do believe however, having athletes friends in national team places … even when they do not achieve a good place or result, if they’ve ‘gone’ for it with a demonstrable effort, quality preparation and quality commitment in the competition, do not cut them from the team or funding, please oh mighty association.
When you dump them, who else will step up to the plate or a replacement ready to perform? It takes years to train somewhat of an able athlete, let alone champions … erm unless of course the ‘cheater’ alternative is to bring in foreign athletes imports.
Hmmm, I shall leave that topic for another entry.
