YOURSAY | ‘Minister absolutely wrong for blaming political instability.’

Poor SEA Games outing: Yeoh defends 'political instability' comment

GreenRusa4781: With utmost respect, I must say that Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh is absolutely wrong in citing political instability as the reason for the decline in the country’s sports performance.

This rot started more than 10 years ago. What we are seeing in sports is a reflection of where the country is headed. Taken that some host countries of the SEA Games include sports which only they are familiar with but what about comparing sports which are included at every SEA Games since the 1990s?

Look at athletics, badminton, soccer, hockey, swimming, diving, basketball, and volleyball. Our performance in athletics and swimming is dismal and very disappointing.

Politicians have rarely been influential in moving sports forward, they are sometimes a bad influence. A minister of sports is also a non-factor when it comes to international achievements.

What matters most is the officials/coaches heading the various sports organisations. No one is holding these individuals accountable and so we see declining standards.

What matters is punishment for both failing officials and coaches.

It looks like the ‘tidak apa (lackadaisical) attitude’ which is part and parcel of government that has infected sports so badly.

Without throwing all these officials/coaches out and starting afresh, we will never recover our former glory where sportspersons sacrificed everything just to glorify Malaysia and not themselves.

P. Dev Anand Pillai: Fair enough, politics always gets in the way of progress be it in sports or other fields of endeavour which our young are showing interest in.

But wouldn’t it be better if we had a better set of civil servants who could run the show no matter who was appointed as the youth and sports minister?

It only goes to show that our civil service is always subservient to their political masters. If we had an incorruptible civil service, we would not be having to deal with poor performances like this.

Therefore, it is up to the people. We deserve what we vote for. Until we change our attitudes and demand better governance and accountability from our elected governments, both state and federal, nothing will change.

Brown Cheetah9736: Sorry Hannah, our decline in sports has nothing to do with political instability. It has been there to show for the last 30 years.

1. Football, from the heydays of Mokhtar Dahari and Soh Chin Aun beating South Korea in the 1970s to now ranked 140+ in the world.

2. Takraw, can’t beat Thailand and now struggling against the likes of Brunei, Indonesia, and Singapore.

3. Badminton, if you take out Lee Zii Jia, our next highest-ranked male singles badminton player is ranked even lower than two to three Hong Kong players.

4. Hockey, from fourth place finish in the World Cup in 1975 to now out of the top 10.

The internal systems, organisations, state versus national bodies conflicts, funding, remuneration, and sponsorship systems are all in a mess.

Akmal Ariffin: Who cares? Once sports was a big propaganda machine for a government like Germany or China.

In my opinion, we should put emphasis on quality than quantity. If we are serious about sporting glory, why don’t we start building as many swimming pools in as many towns to break Singapore’s monopoly?

Why don’t we have a district athletic meet, then state, and finally national to discover as many athletes as possible? This was done back in the 1960s and 1970s.

We waste money on subjective sports like Silat or Kung Fu. Don’t get heated up by sports. Our country is not going to get united just because it won the Thomas Cup.

Just concentrate on the few that are doing well in. Sports isn’t everything. We are just using sports stars to make us feel good. We are prouder when actress Michelle Yeoh won the Oscar. Now that is something!

MS: Malaysia is a country in which everything is connected to and permanently crippled by the politics of race and religion.

The dismal performance at the games is a true reflection of a badly divided country being run to the ground by self-serving politicians and their many minions. Hannah is therefore correct in her assessment.

The lack of long-term planning and preparation, the constant change of ministers, and the shifting of goalposts lead not just to confusion and apathy on the ground, but it breeds complacency across the board.

You don’t plan when you don’t know if you will be around next month or next year.

But let’s take heart. The one area in which the country will win hands down is racial politics. None of the South East Asian countries can come anywhere close.

Hmmmmmmmm: The sports which fell far from their target must be athletics. There should not be an excuse for this failure as this is one of the few sports where performances are quantifiable.

Based on the athletes that we sent, we should be able to predict quite accurately the number of gold medals we expect to get. As far as I can tell, only the men’s hammer failed to meet the gold medal expectation.

But this was made up for by the surprise gold medal in the men’s 400m. There were no other surprises in any of the other events as far as I could tell.

So, the person who made the 10 gold predictions should be asked to show which were the 10 events that he/she expected the gold to come from.

Jurgen: A very poor understanding of the actual facts. It is due to instability in Kenya and/or Cuba that they do not garner as many medals as the Americans and the Germans.

The malaise that has plagued Malaysian sports for many years is the inherent corruption. It is only a fool who blames Hannah.

She certainly needs time to turn this ship around. And she needs to get rid of the rats that have infested this ship for so long.

LG: You are a fool to call others fools. Why can’t she straight away set the target we could meet? Instead of setting targets that could not be met and blaming others.

If you have set a low target with good reasons before the SEA Games, I would respect you. Do not find excuses after that target could not be met.

That is why a lawyer should not be a sports minister. A sports minister should be someone with a solid sports background or involvement in sports.

I always believe Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s choice of ministers is based on the people he knows, not their capabilities.

Yeoh should be sacked immediately. The point is, why we could not meet the target? In other words, you are not good at setting targets. Thus, how are you going to get the country’s sports forward?

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