26th edition of Sea Games just ended, where Laos hosted for the 1st ever time. Khop Chai (Good Bye) was uttered yesterday at the National Stadium of Laos. Though its a small country i n size and facilities, but they made a boig step to host an international event.
25 sports were contested comapred to 45 oin Korat, 2 years ago.
Malaysia ended the campaign in 4th place overall behind Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia with a decent medals tally of 40 gold, 40 silver and 59 bronze.
Though, there were several games were not included i.e bowling, squash, hockey, gymnastics, equistrian and rythmic swimming, BUT there were some funny games were included just because Laos is good in it i.e Fin swimming, Shuttlecock kicking, dragon boat racing. Only teams from Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand participated in those events. All this events are not even recognised by IOC.
Some great achievements of Malaysian contingent in Laos:
1. Daniel Bego, swimmer was awarded as the Best Male athlete after striking 5 gold medals
2. Football team striked gold medal after 20 years and 1st time outside Malaysia since the beggining of the games.
3. Women Badminton team striked gold medal since 1972
4. Boxing striked gold medal for the 1st time outside Malaysia
5. Malaysia surpased their target of 35 medal after baging 40 gold medals.
Thus, there are few matters to ponder:
1. Athletics showed another underpromissing show, where they targeted 10 medals and only delivered 6. among them were veterans Teoh Boon Lim, Norsheela Khalid and sesoned Rosalinda and Lee Hup Wei. It was the worst performance since 1997. Is it problem with the athletes or with the President of the Association. If Thailand & Vietnam can produce quality runners, why cant we. we use to have G.Shanti, M.Kuganeswari, N.Manimegalai, S.Vasu, A.Munusamy, M.Ramachandran, Samson velabhai, G.Saravanan, Narinder Singh. These people concured the track till the rest in the region are fear of us. But now, we became one of the cats.
2. Football finally won after 20 years. Thanks to Vietnamese who scored the own goal. Does this mean, we need to wait for another 20 years for another gold medal. Eight coaches changed within 20 years and a Malaysian coach made it. Millions of Ringgit spent on the team. Are we going to do the same for the rest of games by just letting the money going into the drain.
3. Swimmers and divers performed well by surpassing their target. But the contributors were the similar faces i.e Mun Yee, Bryan, Pandelela, Daniel bego, Chai Lin, Yi Ting. Where are the sucessors?
4. Badminton Team Men screwed without any goldmedal, Their reaon was "Datuk Lee" was not there. Crap. Does this mean, we dont have strong new blood. How long are we going to depend on the old faces.
5. Our very own Sepak Takraw came back without gold medal. The other countries i.e Myanmar, who was coached by Malaysian won Gold medal. Looks like mgt n players need a change.
6.Ladies football team ws trashed 15-0 and 14-0 by thailand and Vietnam. The team were merely passengers, Pls send only performers next time.
7.A cyclist was not registered as athlete. He only knew it once he arrived at Laos. He qualified for the team in merit but was not included by the coach. The cyclist who quit his job and trained on his own for the games was ditched by the coach. Politics again.
Hopw to see changes in Jakarta 2011.
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