Athletes deserve 'A' for effort, but more needs to be done ahead of 2024 Paris Olympics

It's no small feat for our men and women to go up against the world's best at the world's biggest multi-sports Games, which ended Sunday (Aug 8), and help Malaysia to the 74th spot in the final overall medal standings out of 206 nations.

After experiencing all the highs and lows in the Land of the Rising Sun, which they called "home" for more than two weeks, the contingent's success in bagging one silver and one bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, which were held amid the COVID-19 pandemic, is a commendable feat - more so since this is the national contingent's second-best achievement since the 2012 London edition.

The two medals won by the national contingent at the Tokyo Olympics came courtesy of track cycling ace Datuk Mohd Azizulhasni Awang's silver in men's keirin and shuttlers Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik's bronze in men's doubles.

Malaysia's best-ever achievement at the Olympics since first competing in the 1956 Melbourne edition was at the 2016 Rio Games, with the national contingent returning home with four silvers and one bronze.

There may have been a dearth of medals from the Tokyo Olympics, but there was clearly an abundance of youthful talents that emerged, such as Aaron, Wooi Yik (badminton), Nur Dhabitah Sabri (diving), Syaqiera Mashayikh (archery), Azreen Nabila Alias (athletics) and Phee Jinq En (swimming).

That surely bodes well for the future of Malaysian sports as we start preparing for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Take Nur Dhabitah, for example. Yes, the 22-year-old missed out on a medal when she finished fourth in the women's 3-metre springboard event, but her performance here showed that she is capable of being among the medals in three years' time.

So too is Syaqiera, despite her failure to advance further on her Olympic debut after losing 6-4 to world number four Elena Osipova of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the first round of the women's recurve event.

Syaqiera, who hails from Segamat, Johor, did well to achieve her personal best of 630 points in the ranking round, which will surely be a boost to other national recurve archers ahead of the Paris Games.

National sprinter Azreen Nabila, who earned a wild card slot to compete in the Tokyo Olympics, also performed admirably although she did not advance to the next round in the women's 100-metre (m) dash.

The 21-year-old, who is also making her Olympic debut, clocked a personal best of 11.77 seconds (s) en route to finishing last in the qualifying rounds. Her previous best was 11.92s.

Swimmer Jinq En, meanwhile, performed creditably to break the women's 100m breaststroke national record by clocking 1 minute 08.04s to erase her own previous mark of 1:08.50s, which she set en route to winning gold at the 2019 SEA Games in Manila, the Philippines.

However, it still wasn't fast enough for the 23-year-old Jinq En to qualify for the semi-finals when she could only end up in 29th spot out of 43 swimmers.

While these athletes did a commendable job, several others who were being counted on to return home with a medal or at least perform well in Tokyo came up short.

After a sensational All England win in March, Lee Zii Jia was seen as a serious medal contender in Tokyo but he fell to eventual silver medallist Cheng Long in the round of 16.

The Tokyo Olympics also served as an early warning to the powers-that-be that immediate attention needs to be given to the national divers, who returned home empty-handed after superb performances in the previous two editions.

With a line-up featuring national diving queen Pandelela Rinong, Cheong Jun Hoong, Nur Dhabitah, Leong Mun Yee and Ng Yan Yee, it was definitely a below-par display by the diving team, who had been touted as medal contenders in Tokyo as well.

Pandelela, who came here with the biggest reputation, having won two Olympic medals as well as the gold medal at the 2021 FINA Diving World Cup in May, failed to shine in both the events she competed in at the Tokyo Olympics.

In the women's 10-metre (m) platform individual final at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Thursday (Aug 5), Pandelela paid the price for a poorly executed first dive to finish last among 12 divers.

Pandelela suffered the same fate when she and Leong Mun Yee finished eighth - and last - in the women's 10m platform synchronised final on July 27.

High jumper Lee Hup Wei also performed dismally when he failed to clear 2.17m in the qualifying round in Tokyo.

Hup Wei, 34, should have had no problem clearing that height as he has a personal best of 2.29m. On top of that, this is his third Olympic appearance after the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London editions.

In the Beijing edition, Hup Wei cleared 2.20m to finish 32nd overall while in London he ended up 30th with a clearance of 2.16m.

Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Reezal Merican Naina Merican described the national contingent's achievements at the Tokyo Olympics as "balanced and satisfying, especially taking into account that we are competing under difficult circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic".

He, however, apologised to all Malaysians for the national contingent's failure to meet the three-medal tally, especially the country's first-ever Olympic gold medal.

"Whatever it is, I want to thank all the national athletes for having done their best and I have seen their determination. None of them is here for sightseeing or as passengers," he said.

He said cyclists Azizulhasni and Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sharom were the best performers at the Tokyo Olympics while the divers did not meet the target set for them.

"In the (previous) two editions, we won medals in diving and that was the event we were counting on for medals but they did not deliver. I have informed Amateur Swimming Union of Malaysia secretary-general Mae Chen... there is a need to have a thorough discussion about his matter," he said.

Moving forward, Reezal Merican said that in a bid to achieve the targets and prepare the athletes for several editions of the Olympics, the ministry would draw up three important agendas once the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics end in September.

He said a 2020 Tokyo Olympics Evaluation and Improvement Committee would be set up to assess all aspects in a bid to achieve the targets and prepare the athletes for future Olympic Games.

"This committee will look at the overall Road to Tokyo programme. We will also begin the Olympic Special Programme, which is the result of the findings of the Podium Programme Improvement Committee study.

"This programme will be the focus or 'graduation' of the existing Podium Programme so as to enable us to look at the 2024 Paris, 2028 Los Angeles and 2032 Brisbane editions. The Olympic Special Programme will be a road map under the 2030 National Sports Vision," he said.

Apart from that, he said the ministry also wanted more effective involvement from national sports associations in terms of identifying talent at every level in order for them to represent the country at the highest level, especially at the Olympic Games.

Having said that, the achievements of the other national athletes at the Tokyo Olympics are still way behind compared to their rivals and something needs to be done so that their participation will have an effective impact on the sports back home.

Among them are Farah Ann Abdul Hadi (artistic gymnastics), Gavin Green and Kelly Tan (golf), Nuraisyah Jamil-Juni Karimah Noor Jamali (women's International 470 sailing), Khairulnizam Mohd Afendy (men's Laser Standard sailing), Nur Shazrin Mohamad (women's Laser Radial sailing) and Nur Suryani Mohamed Taibi (shooting).

Through more comprehensive and effective planning, it is hoped that the dream of bagging Malaysia's first-ever Olympic gold medal will come true in Paris in 2024.