Olympics - Hope just may not rest solely on failing system anymore

ROME wasn't built in a day.

Yet kudos to the Romans, for they had actually completed most of their conquests and left a legacy of one of the most storied empires in human history, an iconic city as remnant and an adage often repeated by those in pursuit of progress.

Thus, in the aftermath of the country's worst finish at an Olympics since 2008, Malaysians must be asking themselves whether the nation is actually progressing beyond the first day of the construction of their own Rome.

More pertinent to the question is whether it is even worthwhile to retain a system of monopoly over high performance sports (which what the Olympics is actually about) via programmes heavily funded by the taxpayers, yet has never been repaid with even accountability, let alone results.

The returns from the billions spent on such programmes since the Jaya 98 programme was launched in 1994 are quite clearly not forthcoming after 30 years of our sports being trapped in a vicious cycle of revamped, rebranded and renamed programmes with only new beginnings guaranteed at every general elections cycle or ministerial change.

The two bronze medals achieved in the Paris Olympics that ended last Sunday, again won by badminton stars Lee Zii Jia in the men's singles and Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik in the men's doubles, no better than the silver won by Cheah Soon Kit-Yap Kim Hock and the bronze won by Rashid Sidek in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, the first time the Malaysian contingent competed with athletes under a state-funded programme.

But it is not just results at the Olympics that are most concerning, but the fact that over the past three decades the increasing levels of government funding, while easing the preparations of elite athletes have gradually resulted in sports becoming almost fully dependent, subservient and devoid of industry, dynamism, competitiveness, commercialisation and professionalism.

Most sports have simply not grown in the past 30 years and have been reduced to being a burden to the nation.

Few if no sports under the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) banner are self-sufficient and backed by their own industries, with most requiring government funding, some to even hold their annual national level competitions.

While the Jaya 98 system, modelled after state-run programmes of Communist-bloc nations prior to the fall of the iron curtain, did achieve targeted results at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, its relevance had ceased then as the global sporting world had progressed way beyond such archaic systems.

It is simply a system where government funds are channeled towards the preparations of athletes, placing them under contracts and managed by the National Sports Council (NSC) for periods leading up to targeted multi-sports events such as the Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.

Over the years, this has regressed further into the government supporting ill-funded national sports associations (NSAs) to get them to hold junior and development events, resulting in development athletes also being funded under specific programmes created for that purpose.

Malaysia has continued to dig itself deeper into the bowels of this system by recycling what is essentially still the same programme, just expanded as national sports associations became more fully dependent government funding, rebranded and renamed by each Youth and Sports Minister at the helm, if they felt like it - Road to Gold in its latest incarnation under current Minister Hannah Yeoh.

What this has also done is elevate the stranglehold of political powers on Malaysian sports.

While Malaysia has been stuck in this quagmire of political narratives validating the outcomes of a failing system, sports outside of Malaysia have grown into global behemoths over the past three decades, with industries that contribute to the coffers of nations rather than taxing them.

Badminton, for one, is now a multi-billion dollar global sport, where its players are even beginning to challenge the heights of professional tennis in terms of earnings, while Malaysia's administrators are stuck trying to sustain control over players who now realise this fact and pursue the development of their own careers.

An added layer of bureaucracy via a platform that seems to serve as a credit pool for each passing minister, such programmes may have run their course and will likely reduce in relevance as we move into the next Olympic cycle and beyond.

As Zii Jia proved with his well-deserved bronze medal, removing himself from the system may have served him best, while badminton fans were left baffled by, first, the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) with their decision to ban him for turning professional, then Hannah's pursuit of Zii Jia to get him to be part of her Road to Gold programme.

In advanced and sensible sporting nations, an athlete being able to develop on their own and removing the burden of funding from their government would be most welcome and Malaysia could be on its way to realising this as more athletes, beginning with badminton players, choose a similar path.

Athletes have enough examples from the Paris Olympics to inspire them to go ahead and pursue their careers without waiting for the government, none more inspiring than the story of Pakistani javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem.

Here was a man who trained, developed and competed on his own, funded by those in his own village without a single rupee from his government, yet set an Olympic record to sweeten Pakistan's first ever Olympic gold medal.

Local sports fans might also be aware that all three of the Philippines' Olympic gold medals thus far - through weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz in 2020 and gymnast Carlos Yulo's double in Paris - all came through private initiatives, not multi-million ringgit government programmes.

For Malaysia, the track record of multi-million ringgit high performance programmes under the Youth and Sports Ministry pictured against the achievements of the aforementioned athletes simply shows that we need a systemic overhaul, as we have been made to swallow our pride by athletes scouring the lengths of villages for funds to compete and those who trained in makeshift gyms in Melaka, yet deliver Olympic gold medals.

And those are just two stories among so many others in a global sports scene that thrives on stories of personal endeavours framed along the lines of Joshua Slocum's famous quote upon the completion of the vessel Spray's historic circumnavigation - "No king, no country, no treasury at all, was taxed for the voyage of the Spray, and she accomplished all that she undertook to do."

As it stands, there is no visible evidence of reform or overhaul, as stated by Hannah while her machinery continued to push the positives out of the Road to Gold programme which is set to take us through another Olympic cycle. And cycling coach John Beasley, whose track programme is the most heavily-funded by system, stating the next Olympic in Los Angeles is where the programme should be judged.

But history has taught us two things - that the minister never remains to see out long term promises and the programme is destined for new beginnings and beginnings only.

National sports associations (NSAs) must eventually discover their innovative spirit and begin the shift away from the rot by gradually doing away with government funding and the unsporting, unnecessary and sometimes destructive political baggage that comes with it, with certain high-powered politicians even discovered to be meddling in the affairs of national bodies, such as wanting to replace its office bearers with their proxies.

NSAs can only move away from all this if they begin to realise there is so much more to their sports than is limited by government funding, but to do this they too may be in need of transformation with more industrial and commercial mindsets needing to be installed, rather than links to politicians in power.

The move away from government funding could already be starting to snowball, at least among badminton players. But eventually athletes who are serious enough about their careers may find the lure of global professional sports, more so the progressive nature of it, much more viable for their careers than being under a national programme run by politicians.

More and more of those with Olympic potential, with the length of their careers already limited, might opt out in order to chart their own fortunes, like Zii Jia, badminton doubles pair Nur Izzudin Rumsani-Goh Sze Fei and some from other sports.

And such athletes may be offering the nation added hope for Olympic glory in the coming decades, while the Youth and Sports Ministry sustains cosmetic committees tasked with renewing drawing boards for a Rome they must begin to realise was also built through progress.

ARNAZ M. KHAIRUL is a sportswriter, media consultant and former South East Asia representative of the International Association of Cycling Journalists (AIJC). The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.