When I was a kid, it was so darned hard for me to be a sports champion, be it at badminton, table tennis or the 100m dash across the padang.
And, it was so darned hard for the school or kampung champion, the fellow who easily beat me, to be the district champion. It was the same sorry story for the district champion at state level. And, the bar kept rising.
So, how to get to compete in the Olympics, the greatest sports show on Earth?
Well, you can start by trying to be the best in your country, followed by being the best in your region, say Southeast Asia, followed by being the best in the continent, say Asia — which has China and India with more than a billion people each — and being among the best in the world rankings.
Taking into account all these factors, it is so darned hard just trying to be good enough to compete in the Olympics.
We see the athletes in all their glory but we don’t see their sacrifices, their blood, sweat and tears, not having a normal childhood, not having a normal life as they train like mad to rise above others.
On training, Usain Bolt, the greatest track and field Olympian of all time, said: “Easy is not an option... no days off. Never quit, be fearless. Talent you have naturally, skill is only developed by hours and hours of work.”
Well, you can try going through the backdoor on a wildcard, which is a token of special exemption given by the International Olympic Committee to countries whose athletes do not qualify for the Games.
But, that can be embarrassing, like the fat Ethiopian swimmer with the paunchy stomach, dubbed the “whale” who finished last and far behind the second last swimmer in the 100m freestyle qualifying session in Rio.
It can make you cry, too. There have been cases of 100m runners who flew 20 hours or more to the Olympic Games after thousands of hours of training, but only to be eliminated in less than 11 seconds in the heats.
Suppose you really get to take part in the Olympics, be part of the grand opening ceremony and all that razzle-dazzle, how about winning a medal?
Must be darned hard.
But mankind is kind of greedy when it comes to expectations. Malaysians are too, when it comes to the Olympics. Great expectations come with progress.
This is how the Malaysian Olympic medal story goes. In the beginning, there was none. Then there was one, then there were two, then there were several medals, but yet, it was “disappointing”.
You see, till the 1980s, Malaysians never got to see a fellow countryman win a medal at the Olympics. As flags from other countries were raised at the podium for gold, silver and bronze, how we wished the Jalur Gemilang would be up there, too.
In 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics, a wave of euphoria swept through the nation when Malaysia won its first-ever Olympic medal — a badminton bronze through the Sidek brothers, Razif and Jalani.
Four years later, at the Atlanta Olympics, the nation also rejoiced when Malaysia won one silver and one bronze through badminton men’s doubles Cheah Soon Kit and Yap Kim Hock, and singles Rashid Sidek, respectively.
This time, at the Rio Olympics, the country achieved its best-ever results in winning five medals: four silver and one bronze. Ironically, there were Malaysian fans who felt disappointed.
So much so, Datuk Lee Chong Wei offered his apologies to Malaysians for winning a silver medal instead of gold. That is because Malaysians, in their great thirst for Olympic glory, were blinded by the colour of gold.
And we also wanted to see Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong and Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying win gold, without noticing that they had already changed the script in reaching the finals.
Suddenly, everybody became an expert in front of the television, jumping up and down, telling our shuttlers in Rio how to smash or defend, shouting “aiyah!”, “aiyoh!”, or “don’t do this!” and “don’t do that!”.
It was quite funny, considering that these “instant coaches” or armchair critics had hardly held a racquet in their lives. And one auntie, shouting advice to Chong Wei through the idiot box, asked me how come the badminton scores didn’t stop at 15. I told her that it stopped 10 years ago and now the scoring system is 21 points.
However, we can’t blame them when they had joined that giant emotional roller-coaster ride up and down Malaysia.
At the Olympics, the athletes try to win a medal but for the ordinary Malaysians, they want an invisible Olympic gold, their medal of national pride and bragging rights to hang around their necks.
I am so darned proud of Chong Wei, Azizulhasni Awang, V Shem, Wee Kiong, Peng Soon, Liu Ying, Pandelela Rinong and Cheong Jun Hoong.
Let’s high-five them for giving Malaysia five Olympic medals. We have never done so well in the history of the Olympiad since our participation in 1956.
NST deputy sports editor Chan Wai Kong sees life differently after waking up from a coma following a car accident in Vancouver