THE world's fastest man, Usain Bolt, from island nation Jamaica, will collect his second Olympic gold medal in the 200m finals on Wednesdday night. Bolt was yesterday joined by his female team mate, Shelly-Ann Frazer, who also took the gold in the 100m finals on Monday.
In fact, Jamaica monopolised the 100m women by taking all top three positions. With a population of not more than three million people, Jamaica is increasingly acknowledged as a country that keeps churning out winners after winners.
I made a quick check on the Net on Jamaica. I found out that it only gained full independnce in 1962, five years after us. It was discovered by Columbus in 1494. Spain had also been a past master of Jamaica before the English came and took control in the mid 1600.
It's a country that depends on tourism as one of the major revenue earners, besides bauxite mining. It has a high literacy rate of about 85 per cent. Almost one-third of the population are under 14 years old.
The Jamaican economy is not blessed like ours. They have no oil and are not leading producers of any agricultural product. But they certainly know their Olympics well. They have their own rum, which perhaps explain why Jamaicans seem to be full of life and merriment.
Check out the Jamaican newspapers online and you read stories about school teachers expressing disappointment that none of their school athletes are in the Olympic team in Beijing. Can you imagine that?
When will we ever get to be half as good as the Jamaicans? I read that our Government has revised the core sports programme from eight to 19. Simply translated, we are expanding the quesr for our world champion from within eight sports to 19!
Good Luck Malaysia? Is this another round of Malaysia Boleh?
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10 comments:
Salam Datuk
For a tropical island famous for reggae and dreadlocks, they've got a bobsled team at the Winter Olympics. It made its debut at the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary.
They finished last but they won the notice of the world.
At Lillehammer in 1994, their four-man sled finished in 14th place, ahead of both sleds from the US.
That's Jamaica Boleh for you.
I think Malaysians are too busy doing too many things at once, too much to achieve, not enough focus. The same lot to go into business, politics, sports, farming, becoming television celebrities, blogging, into space...etc.
Mohd. Ramesh
Datuk, Salam.
It's all in the diet Sir. For as long as our athletes eat belachan, that's how long we won't see a gold medal.
datuk, check out the movie Cool Runnings. awesome and inspirational.
how a team of top jamaican sprinters missed out on the 100m qualifiers but ended up competing as the first jamaican bobsled team at the calgary winter olympics to prove the theory that sprinters make the best bob sledders.
- the hitman -
Dear commentators,
The Beijing Olympics have proven that our sports are years behind others. No disrespect to Chong Wei. He did well to take home a silver medal. If we use his finals against Lin Dan as a measure of our achievements in sports, I say that we have much, much work to. The potential is there. But we falter at the last critical point! TQ
Never mind Jamaica. At least the Island has Bob Marley and of course, grass...lots of grass. But take a look at the East African states. How is it that Kenya become king of the middle distance race and a poor nation like Ethiopia practically own the long distance running field? Of course science has come up with various explanations, including those concerning anatomy as to why these East African runners are so successful. But I believe the bottom line here is their burning desire to win. A medal at the Olympics, a win at any of the American Marathon races or becoming a top football striker in Africa is also a passport out of poverty. For many of them, they simply had to win. Second best means nothing.
When we adopt that kind of attitude (attitude is of course the basic requirement for anything), only then can we hope to see our athletes winning. If they continue to lead the leaderboard on the first day of a golf competition and then spend the evening drinking when their fellow professionals from the West heads straight for the driving range, we will continue to lose.
Salam,
I hope whatever we achieved (or should I say, didn't achieve) in Beijing would not be used as an excuse to revive the idea of having a 'high performance training center' abroad.
In the future, we can win the badminton gold provided the Africans haven't taken up the sport yet.
Mohd. Ramesh
much attention and investment put into the wrong sports/disciplines in malaysia.
we dont focus enough on what we can excel at. we are all over the place but we excel at none.
badminton - ok
soccer - forget about it
squash - ok
bowling - ok
archery - not bad lah
shooting - tak payahlah
equestrian - maybe
hockey - can still salvage
table tennis - dont know really - what happened to this one?
tennis - fat hopes
volleyball - again, fat hopes
basketball - dream on
athletics - another couple of generations pun no guarantee
gymnastics - ha ha ha
swimming - tak payahlah
diving - maybe got hope
wrestling - hmmmm
weighlifting - no hope
boxing - no hope
handball - probably can that is we we ever try to develop the sport
road cycling - no need lah
track cycling - jauh lagi but got hope
motorsports - maybe. then again, we produced a world champion rally driver but hey, rallying isnt recognised as a sport by the ministry. instead we wanted our 1st f1 driver.
sailing - maybe, just maybe
rowing - tak payah
kayaking - do we even have this?
triathlon - most of the winners at local event are foreigners anyway so why bother
by the way, tak payahlah dangle a RM1 million carrot. menyampah aku dengar. if the athlete does well, by all means reward him/her but tak payahlah make a big announcement. duit itu duit rakyat jugak. senang senang reward kat orang.
Hi Datuk, we won't have to be as good as the Jamaicans. The Jamaicans will become us. The MSN is going to buy and naturalise Jamaican sprinters.
This world is becoming a seriously funny place, isn't it. hehehe..
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