R. Nadeswaran is angry that the success of our sportsmen and sportswomen through their own hard work is often usurped by officials and self-seekers who want to steal the honours and bask in other people’s glory. He can be reached at: citizen-nades@thesundaily.comBEFORE the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, a hoax runner fooled crowds with a home-made torch topped by flaming underpants. Barry Larkin, then a university student, carried a wooden chair leg crowned with a blazing metal pudding container which held the remains of the pants, up the steps of Sydney’s Town Hall and delivered it to city mayor Pat Hills.
Larkin’s group, which had a fake motorcycle escort, took the torch into the crowd and lit it and initially everyone saw it as a joke. But after he began to run the route the crowd closed in around him and he found himself with a genuine police escort.
On Monday, I was tempted to pull off such a hoax not for thrills, but as a show of protest, though not to highlight the problems in Tibet or the human rights issues of China. It would be one to show the inhumane treatment, the blatant disrespect for and above all, the lack of recognition given to our sportsmen and sportswomen who brought fame and glory to our nation.
When I viewed the list of people on the website of the OCM, Olympic Council of Malaysia (www.olympic.org.my), I was disgusted to say the least. Several names on the list did not commensurate with the Olympic goals and some have never stepped on to a bitumen track or playing field, for that matter. There were corporate leaders, publicity seekers and people you and I have never heard of before. I can understand the need for corporate sponsors to have their nominees, and some of them picked the right people. No one should argue with that. There were 80 runners. Couldn’t half the slots be reserved for sportsmen and sportswomen?
The people in the Sports Ministry seem to have taken precedence over those who participated in sports for King and the country. Just because the athletes are funded by the ministry, it does not give officials automatic berths. The best thing they could have done is to have declined and offered their places to deserving ones.
On this score, Sports Minister Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob must be applauded for his gesture. Although he officiated at the launch, he politely declined to run, saying that the honour should go to sportsmen.
What business have people like Datuk Zolkples Embong and Datuk Dr Ramlan Aziz running in the torch relay? It can be argued that the former is the head of the National Sports Council – the organisation that handed out taxpayers’ money for someone to spend RM1.4million on "entertainment." Dr Ramlan, the head of the National Sports Institute was the head honcho of the group that planned and executed the "RM490 million Project Brickendonbury" which has now been junked into the annals of "Malaysia’s Greatest Disasters." And both must be held responsible for wasting taxpayers’ money running into millions on the Champions Youth Cup and other extravagances.
Why is the Inspector General of Police running? If you want to give the police force such an honour, shouldn’t it be sprinter Rabuan Pit, or N. Sri Shanmuganathan or double international Tam Chiew Seng who once donned the blue inform? Ow Soon Kooi who led the team to the Atlanta Games was also a police officer. What about Tan Sri P. Alagendra who was played in the 1956 Games and subsequently went as team manager and Chef de Mission?
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