WHAT a pleasure it is to watch great athletes like Usain Bolt of Jamaica, Faith Kipyegon of Kenya and Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia in action at the Olympics.
Their wins were performed in spectacular fashion, showcasing a dazzling display of strength, vigour and determination. Watching their feats is something to behold.
How did they become Olympic medallists? Reading and listening to their stories, the road to success is hard and long.
It takes alert and supportive parents. It also takes the availability of facilities, a sympathetic state, strong funding and effective coaching.
For instance, diver Pandelela Rinong has a father of limited means. Filled with aspiration to see his daughter excel, he took her without fail to the swimming pool to learn swimming.
The pool she trained at was the Stampark swimming pool in his town. Had the father not had any aspirations for his daughter and had the town been without a pool, Pandelela might not be what she is today.
In the same vein, but on a different level, the parents of Singapore’s swim darling, Joseph Schooling, are more well-off. They had the means and knowledge to test his bone growth rate to see if he could grow to at least 1.9m tall, which fits the physical requirement of an Olympic winner.
After years of practice, Schooling won gold in the 100m butterfly in Rio.
On the other hand, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, was reported to have started his middle-distance competition in primary school. He ran more than 10km a day to school, back and forth.
These three stories demonstrate that the identification of talents by parents is the best start.
This also means the preparation to produce an Olympian begins early and the development of talent is usually initiated by keen and observant parents, or in the case of Gebrselassie, his circumstances.
There are many factors at play in producing successful athletes.
The training is long, technical and expensive, something that families cannot do on their own.
Hence, the government may move in to help. This can be channelled through schools, philanthropists or sports organisations. Knowing the importance of intervention to help talented children in sports, countries in Africa formed a foundation for orphans, not only to help but also to identify sports talent.
To run the foundation, Olympic medallists were given the responsibility as they know better what it takes to practise and compete in the Olympics.
We may pay heed to this example. Kenyan authorities know that sports talents in their country are generally from poor families, so they formed a foundation to help. But they have the advantage of having many medallists as their pool of coaches.
On the contrary, our country does not have many Olympic medallists, hence, there must be awareness to have a systematic practice and structure to identify quality and willing coaches.
The assistance can be extended to legal and educational matters such as in the case of Schooling. As he trained in the United States, Singapore deferred his national service.
Let’s say Malaysian talents are coached abroad. They should be allowed to study the Malaysian school syllabus to sit the SPM examination. Not having the SPM certificate will deprive Malaysians of chances to work in the government sector.
The road to the Olympics is hard and arduous, but by not sowing in the spring, one will not be reaping in the autumn.
We have good plans, schools and programmes to produce athletes. But could it be more focused if we have a curriculum, something called World Championship Education Programme, for student athletes?
Or perhaps work with African countries for their expertise, experience and pool of Olympics medallists and coaches?
MEGAWATI OMAR,
Shah Alam, Selangor