IT IS every athlete's dream to compete in the Olympics, the greatest arena for sports. No matter how many times an athlete has won world competitions or becomes world No 1 in his or her sport, there's still that missing feeling if the athlete has not won the ultimate prize – an Olympic gold medal.
Nicol has bagged 56 Women's International Squash Players Association titles since turning pro in 2000 including the world title a record six times.
But after winning her sixth title in Rotterdam in November, she said she would willingly trade them all for one Olympic gold medal. So it is on the shoulders of Chong Wei and Chong Wei alone that Malaysia can in the foreseeable future land that much sought after prize.
An Olympic gold is so phenomenal that even if a country were to win hundreds of silver or bronze medals, it would be forgotten well before the next Olympics because the colour isn't gold.
In a huge country like Indonesia, the name Taufik Hidayat is better known than any of its other personalities whether in entertainment or politics. Why? At 24, he mesmerised 200 million Indonesians when he won the badminton gold medal at the 2004 Olympics.
Taufik during his heyday may not have won many titles on the international circuit or reigned as world No 1 for as long as Chong Wei but like China's legendary Lin Dan, he certainly knew when to peak and win the tournaments that really mattered especially for his country's honour.
In other words, both players are more selective than Chong Wei who is ubiquitous in the tournaments that he plays and picks up the most points to hold on to the No 1 ranking.
Last year, he had a hectic schedule competing in 15 tournaments, winning seven of them. But Chong Wei was obviously exhausted towards the end of 2011, beaten in three consecutive semi-finals. The new year has just started but as you are reading this column, Chong Wei is already in the court for the Korean Open Super Series Premier which begins in Seoul today.
This is indeed an important year in the quest for Malaysia's first Olympic gold as the Olympics will be staged in London from July 27 to Aug 12.
Realistically, the London Olympics is about the only chance in a long time for Malaysia to land this medal. And the entire country's focus is on Chong Wei but look at the recent statements from Chong Wei and his coach Tey Seu Bock. Our most accomplished badminton player said he wanted his former coach Datuk Misbun Sidek to help him prepare for the Olympics while Seu Bock said Chong Wei has no plans to cut down on the tournaments before the London showdown.
After the Korean Open, he is down to compete in the Malaysian Open. Then there is the Thomas Cup qualifier next month, the All-England and Swiss Open in March, the India Open in April and the Malaysia Open GP in May.
Assuming Malaysia makes it to the Thomas Cup Finals, Chong Wei will be in the thick of action in May and the Indonesian Open in June. Do Chong Wei and his coach have their priorities right? And why did Chong Wei want Misbun to help him? Does it mean that he's not so confident in his coach? Well, I shall touch on Badminton Association of Malaysia's (BAM) selection of coaches another time.
Misbun is known to be a sensitive person and resigned in a huff following a tiff with the BAM last year. Chong Wei has put the BAM in a spot by wanting Misbun back. After what happened I don't think Misbun is in the right frame of mind to help Chong Wei win the gold medal.
Seu Bok wants Chong Wei to compete at his own pace saying it's vital that "we don't heap extra pressure on him and hopefully he'll stay injury-free till July".
I have closely followed our badminton scene for almost 50 years but if you ask me, I'm worried that with the punishing pace Chong Wei has charted, our first Olympic gold might well remain a pipe dream.
And not to forget that when the London Olympics gets going, Chong Wei will be two months shy of his 30th birthday, an age considered old in badminton, perhaps the most physically taxing of sports.
Can someone at BAM or the Sports Ministry – which has been spending millions on its Road to London programme from 2009 to land that first gold – do something more sensible?
Chong Wei has not only to contend with Lin Dan, arguably the best badminton player the world has ever seen, but has to worry about the growing threat from Chinese youngster Chen Long. Chong Wei lost three times to Chen Long in 2011.
Just look at the way Chen Long played and the stamina he showed when he beat Chong Wei at the semi-final of the World Super Series and how tamely he lost to Lin Dan. Knowing Lin Dan, he will lie low in terms of the tournaments he chooses and there's no way that he'll allow the Olympic gold to slip from his hands.
As for Nicol, there is nothing more that she wants now than to see squash accepted as an Olympic event. She is not giving up her crusade to get the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to do this despite the failure of her latest attempt for the sport to be included in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The IOC snubbed squash in favour of golf and rugby.
Nicol first presented a paper for the inclusion of squash to the IOC in 2009. "My dream has always been to play in the Olympics and I will do everything to see squash in the Games," she said.
The irony is that even if squash were to be an Olympic sport in 2020, in all likelihood Nicol won't be there to win that gold as she'll be 37. But it's not impossible to expect Nicol, dubbed Malaysia's greatest ever athlete, to come out of retirement to prove a point. She might do just that.
Posted on 3 January 2012 - 03:14am- The Sun
Azman Ujang is a former editor-in-chief of Bernama. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
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