will we finally learn from THESE Olympics?

As i sit and the countdown kicks off with The Who to what is possibly the best Olympics yet, the thought does occur to me ; What happened to our hopes and dreams these Olympics?

London showed us Great Britain knows how to put on a show, the Mayor of London was magnificent and our nation came together. But where do we all go from here?

Truth be told, when it all started 16 days ago, I wasn't to impressed with the Opening Ceremony. It was decidely British and since we are quite exposed to their music, ideas and sports, it wasn't something that hit me for a six.

But the sports, volunteers and crowd were fantastic. London scores a century with this one for sure. Something we will remember for along time. However, there are also other highs and lows we should take note of and in the process of bettering ourselves, take stock and evaluate ourselves HONESTLY.

Lee Chong Wei is a Shining Star and an example of triumph thru adversity. Almost written off from the roster 2 months ago, he made the Finals through much pain and medication and very little training. When you think of the likes of Nadal missing out, we are truly blessed that LCW made it that far. All we could ask for is that he try his best and as we all saw, he ABSOLUTELY did that. He left nothing more on the court. On the day, he just wasn't good enough and Lin Dan got the gold, but LCW united the country. That hasn't happened in a long while and the Rakyat truly missed that.

That resulted in many columnist and journalists commenting that Sports united the country where politicians failed. True. Politics has divided this country just like in any other. Sports will always be the great uniter and leveller.

Thats why I, as a sportsfan know and believe in this as do many others. Politics have NO place in sports. Yet, time and again, year after year, we make the same mistake. Lord Sebastian Coe did and fantastic job getting London the Olympics, put on a great show and may have a career in Politics should he choose to do so, but first and foremost as an ex Olympian, he did an exemplary job with London 2012. Add David Beckham to the team, more than enough has been said about his participation, and also Philip Beard, recently appointed CEO of QPR by Malaysian businessman Tan Sri Tony Fernandes. In a nutshell, these people know about Sport, hence London 2012's success.

So, where are our ex Sportsmen? Seems strange that we have so many of them but very few actually serve the nation. Instead, we have politicians, businessmen, cronies and head of organisations in charge. Don't get me wrong, these people may be successful in their chosen field, but do they actually know what our sportsmen and women go through to succeed?

It's a fact, that those born with the silver spoon can't relate to someone who struggles to work and save to make ends meet and then even sacrifices more to succeed in sports. A case in point, is Pandelela's mother in UK at the Diving Centre walking around with money she saved to buy a ticket to watch her Pride and Joy in action in the Semis. But, surprisingly, none of our many officials were on hand to either help her or give her a pass. I won't be surprised to hear that many VIP's had tickets though. Just think of the sacrifices her mother made to get her there.

We constanly think that Patronage and Corporate figures will guarantee our success in sports. Compare us to other countries and you'll be surprised, we got it wrong.

Another case in point is  Mike Krzyzewski, coach of the US Basketball team and Gold Medal Winner at 2 Olympics. He doesn't coach a NBA team. He is one of the most successful University Coaches in the America, coach of Duke. That is a grassroots coach that came through the system to be successful at an International meet.

It worries me that we probably have no one like this here in many popular sports. It worries me that
we had no participation in athletics and gymnastics after doing well in regional games. These sports though make the back pages with stories of scandals and politiking rather than the sportsman and womens prowess.

A read through the back pages of most of our local papers will tell us of in fighting, misappropriation of funds, little Napoleans with Lifetime tenure in Associations. This then results in our low participation in Games but high participation of officials at Games. Strange but true. And then we wonder why parents dissuade their kids for pursuing a career in sports.

At the same time, we pay top dollar to see Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, the BPL clubs visits us yearly and we host F1 for more than a decade. Yes, local corporate companies pay for the privilege to be a part of that, but very few spend on developing Malaysians to reach the top tier.

Being in the industry, I notice the difference. Local associations don't have proper contracts, or even at times legal representation. It all seat of the pants stuff. Thats fine if you're Michael Schumacher in a car, but when you're an organiser, that's downright unprofessional.

Compare that to the foreign names I mentioned above and the array of contracts and lawyers and image right consultants they have. We look decidely amateur. This is the landscape of sports in the world today, the World #2 largest industry after Health. If we want to be a part of that, we need to get professional quick.

It's no coincidence that in Malaysia, sports that have very little political inteference have done well. Think Squash and Bowling. These projects started decades ago with the likes of the late Datuk Alex Lee and Mej (R) Maniam. Mej Maniam is currently with the Asian Squash Confederation based in India and coincidently India have a up and coming young girl just like our very own Nicol David.

With Bowling it was the likes of Sid Allen and Datuk PS Nathan that brought it to our notice with fantastic performances for the team. Sure, there are many others involved as well, but the structure and processes were put in place by these people.

In our National Sports Council as well, there are many that very competent, but they are too few of them and more cronies, yes men and politicians in the field. Frankly, these servants of sport, are outnumbered.

When oh when will we wake up and smell the roses? As I listen to the strains of My Generation by the Who putting a cap into London 2012 feather, I can't but hope it happens soon.