Sea Games 2023: There is no low, just lower

MAY 18 ― The painful parts of Malaysia’s performance at the 32nd Sea Games in Cambodia mount, almost inexhaustive to list.

Seventh out of 11 nations, only ahead of Myanmar, Laos, Brunei and Timor Leste.

If the Burmese junta was not distracted by conflicts with seven of its vassal states nor confronted by international sanctions for perpetuating military rule over its democratically elected rivals turned jail inmates, it could have sent an army division on holiday to Phnom Penh to unseat Malaysia from seventh.

But it was not so bad before.

Last year, Malaysia was sixth. Below sports behemoths like Singapore.

Within a year Malaysia has been disabused of the notion last year was an aberration.

The headline is clear now, Jalur Gemilang has indeed slipped behind its neighbours.

Every Sea Games evaluates the overall strength of a nation’s sports culture and presence since it is about amateur athletes and the total number of competitors countries can churn out.

Malaysia’s problems are neither new nor simple, they stack up on a nasty landfill.

This column previously explained Malaysia’s sporting dysfunctions. Its monumental mismanagement of both amateur and professional set-ups.

People watch the closing ceremony of the 32nd South-east Asian Games (SEA Games) at the Morodok Techo National Stadium in Phnom Penh May 17, 2023. — AFP pic

The Cliff notes version, below:

Too few Malaysians are in the range of sports, and those in it are poorly assisted by their sports associations.

All the incompetence — around grassroots development, facilities management, trainers, absent commercialisation and ill-structured domestic competitions and leagues — merge as a massive systemic cock-up river.

To add emphasis, overall winner Vietnam won exactly four times (136) the golds Malaysia gathered.

All the Vovinam gold medals in the world cannot explain the chasm.

Weird events do not hide minimums

This is Cambodia’s first time hosting the Sea Games. Of course, it cheated. That’s the great Asean tradition. In this archipelago, nations pick their own truths and stick to them without needing to justify.

The numbers show it.

Every edition since 1997, when hosted by one of the big four ― Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines or Malaysia ― the home squad tops the medal charts.

Why do the results veer wildly?

Malaysia hosted 2017 and reigned supreme with 145 golds only to drop to 56 when Philippines hosted in 2019. Obviously, Philippines topped that edition with 149 gold medals, only to drop to 52 golds at the 2021 Hanoi Games.

Hosts cut out losing events and add the sure wins.

Whether these events are Olympic, non-Olympic or something played exclusively in the host country, matters little.

Which is why in this recently-concluded Sea Games, 581 gold medals were at stake — almost double that in the Olympics.

Yet the blue-riband sports remain. Like track and field. And in them, Malaysia collapsed as badly.

Malaysia won only 19 of the 141 track and field medals — five of them gold. It was a horrendous yield.

The swimmers pitched in eight medals — only one gold. Out of 117 medals possible to win.

Malaysia faltered in these traditional and long-standing Olympic sports.

Adapt or die

Sea Games is a test of adaptation.

As every edition gives different challenges, why do countries like Thailand and Indonesia still remain substantial, why do they not crumble like Malaysia?

They try to compete even in games foreign to them.

Most sports require athleticism, resilience and nerves, so they rebuild from their large base. It works.

They achieve minimal success in those “special sports and events.”

These new sports are similar to established ones, the advantage is with the home nation but in the spirit of amateur sports they can be adopted.

This is the second games with Vovinam but Indonesia snagged three of the 30 gold medals.

Vietnam’s Pencak Silat gold haul is four, the same as Malaysia’s.

However, this is not the main prong of the column today. It is worthwhile to acknowledge after 53 years of Asean and 32 editions, these special sports are inevitable. If Malaysia paid a bit more attention, it could have had a few more medals in the bag.

Homeboy does not look Indochinese enough

Welcome to the era of foreign born and raised talents crossing to trade their playing skills for citizenship or the chance to win in a region with less competition.

Malaysia was upset that second-grade sub-continent cricketers carrying Cambodian colours beat their men in T10, T20 and T50.

But it was not completely unexpected.

Almost all the Asean countries have naturalised players including Malaysia.

What aggrieved Malaysia most was the quick passage from passport issuance to them uniformed up to play.

True, very suspect but how come Malaysia was consistently second best to the pretenders? Malaysia initiated cricket into the games in 2017 ostensibly to win sure golds, but is the cricket quality so brittle that Cambodia defeats it immediately.

Can much of the blame be passed to the low presence of cricket as a grassroots game? There are hardly 10 standard cricket grounds, not to mention the lack of coaches and zero local league.

The summary is naturalisation is common and people in glass houses should not throw stones. If Malaysia pushes a sport into the games so it benefits more than its neighbours, it should have the good sense to make sure it's pretty good at it.

The elite sportsman-trap

Every time a genuine talent emerges, sports administrators prioritise more resources for him.

Elite athletes benefit from overseas stints or are based abroad permanently. It costs to live, train and compete.

For example, Malaysia’s first squad divers and cyclists.

The generational talent gets the support in the belief big returns will occur, maybe that elusive Olympic gold medal.

However, often elite athletes are supported at the expense of the larger sporting fraternity. That three cyclists live and train in Melbourne while Borneo has no velodrome. Malaysians living in 70 per cent of the country do not experience a velodrome unless they fly with bike on tow to Semenanjung.

The allure of a quick win blinds decision makers from the higher priority of thickening the playing pool. That X-amount for the elite athlete could have brought thousands of Malaysians into the sport.

It’s a gamble since athletes may never peak, or get injured or lose form.

For instance, Malaysia has won medals in weightlifting but there was little joy in Phnom Penh.

Malaysia collected only one bronze from the 42 medals available.

Some point to the fact, some of our top lifters skipped the Sea Games to focus on Olympic qualifications. Sure, but the weightlifters from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand also face the same predicament.

They probably sent their second teams.

Yet their second-liners were up for it, and ours were not.

The failure to build a large base and not just rely on elite athletes came back to haunt Malaysia at the Sea Games.

Elite athletes are the top layer but the next few layers below should be impressive too. Not so in Malaysia, the gulf between elite and second group is massive.

Shereen Vallabouy dominated the 400m race at the Sea Games. Umar Osman won the men’s 400m. However, both 4x400 team struggled, only the men stood on the podium in third place.

How much slower are the other members of the Malaysian sprint teams? A lot slower is the answer which leads to basic question like how many trained 400m female runners are there in Malaysia inside a programme or with a calendar of events? It’s likely to be a very thin list. And even thinner in technical field events like hammer throw and pole vault.

Putrajaya, we have a problem

The analysis is not to pound the new government or the three before it.

Not about a female sports minister or a prime minister not known to be a sports freak.

It is about accepting that Malaysia has a huge sports problem which predates all those in power today. And to act thereafter.

The Sea Games, more than the Asians and Olympics, measures the depth and width of Asean countries’ sports culture, which increases as the middle class grows.

But all the various components, from willing participants, fostering a sports mentality in schools, tying individual and group efforts with the associations and engendering a thriving competitive space — from jet-skis to fencing — require planning, coordination and application.

Those principles have gone missing for decades.

If Cambodia was a huge debacle, hold on, with this trajectory diabolically steadied worse will certainly follow.

* This is personal opinion of the columnist.