Back To The Drawing Board For Rio2016 – footsteps……..
Now that London2012 Olympic flame had been distinguish we are looking towards Rio2016. Doing better than Beijing 2008 with an addition of a Bronze from Pandalela, our Sports Association should go back to the drawing board to chart out our future in Rio2016.
Even though we did not achieve our dream of bringing back our first Gold but our athletes does in one way or another, accounted for, the spending that the government had provided.
Read NSTP’s Group Managing Director summary of London2012 HERE.
When I was lecturing on National Coaching Accrediation Scheme Sports Science course about Sports Philosophy, there is one sub topic mentioning about the Coaching Process. The Coaching Process is one of the elements that coaches and sports managers has to comply.
The Coaching Process is a cycle as the diagram below shows.
Sports Association who had representative at London2012 has to go back to the drawing board with the data that they have in terms of performance, environment, technological assistance etc at the Olympics. Combine that with new data for Rio2016. For example weather in Rio is different from London. This is data for coaches to prepare athletes.
Back to our Tigers who competed in London, there are a few athletes that can still compete in Rio and their performance should be upgraded to enable them to give a competitive edge.
We still have athletes who are in their teens or early 20 who still can compete in two or more Olympics ahead as long as they are not burnt out or reached their plateaus. Some of our London2012 athletes were actually prepared for Rio2016 such as Azizul Hasni Awang and Khairulnizam Mohd Affendy can be considered our precious gems that should be well prepared for the next Olympic.
Four years is not a long wait and these athletes who will be in their transition phase after London2012 should be busy again when coaches chart out their 4 year periodization plan for Rio2016. Maybe we are not worried about having the service of our young athletes in London except maybe from badminton if Dato’ Lee Chong Wei decide to retire.
Personally I think Dato’ Lee should consider still represent Malaysia for Rio2016. Maybe it is too much to ask him to stay when he will be 33 then, but 33 is still within the competitive age for high performance considering experience. He may consider retiring if there is/are another player of his calibre to fly the Jalur Gemilang. Our Golden dream is not shelved but carry forward to Rio2016. Dato’ Lee, you are still our golden hope.
Pandalela might be a surprise to many for winning the bronze. Thats why a facebooker challenged her to cut off his ***** if Pandalela strike a medal. Pandalela did and that guy chickened out and deleted his facebook account. When she won that Bronze, Pandalela will be the athlete to look out for in Rio2016. With the experience, she could upgrade herself to silver and who knows the glittering Gold.
Azizul Hasni Awang is sixth in the world in Keirin track event (considering London2012). At 24 years old he still can compete in two more Olympics. Based on Dato’ Naim’s statement when interviewed by Astro Arena , Azizul is being prepared for Rio2016 and his opportunity to compete in London will be his experience collecting mission. Take out Chris Hoy Azizul is 5th best. Chris will be 40 by then and I don’t think he will compete in Rio2016.
Even Khairulnizam Mohd Affendy from sailing was not projected for London2012 but Rio2016 instead. However, compared to Azizul, chances for him is quite slim considering he was 47th out of 49 sailors in the Men’s Laser. But anything can happen within this 4 years of preparation.
Archer Mohd Khairul Anwar too can be out best bet for a medal in Rio2016 if he can maintain while improving his skills. He was among the 8 best archer having reached the Quarter final. He is 20 but in sports such archery, age is not a factor unlike other tough physical requirement sports.
Within this four years we hope to unearth more Olympians from the Pelapis Program of National Sports Council. We have already seen promising athletes from this program showing their worth at regional and international competitions.
Besides athletes, we too need to unearth more local coaches. After the Jaya 98 success, I think NSC plan to groom more local coaches when they bid for 2006 Asian Games. However the success rate is not very promising. We still have to depend on foreign coaches to harvest medals at international competitions. Badminton aside, our hopefuls for medal winning athletes still comes from foreigners.
Azizul Hasni awang has John Beasly, Pandalela Rinong has Yang Zhuliang while Mohd Khairul Anwar has Lee Jae-hyung. Maybe archer can be certain to still keep Lee since he has been given PR status. However Yang Zhuliang has been reported to have an offer from Australia. If Zhuliang take up the offer, then Pandalela and maybe other divers might have a problem with their preparation for the future. Coach-athlete relation is not an overnight connection. It has to take time before both parties can sync between each other.
I am not sure whether there is an understudy local coach for our athletes. Sorry to say some foreign coaches do not squeeze out and expose all their knowledge and experience when they coach our athletes. Thats why sometimes back our foreign coaches are very reluctant to learn to speak Bahasa Malaysia or even English and that contribute to communication problem. Communication is an important element in sports coaching. Verbal instructions and non verbal instructions should be used hand in hand for an effective communication.