Malaysian shuttler Lee Chong Wei has advanced to the men’s singles final at the Beijing Olympic Games after beating Lee Hyun-il from South Korea. Lee will meet his arch rival, Lin Dan from China in the final.
Congrats on the achievement, and thank you for bringing home a medal… hope that it would be a shiny gold in the end. Good luck and all the best.
Meanwhile, our neighbour Singapore is also in celebration with their first medal in 48 years. Their women’s table tennis team marched into the finals after defeating the Koreans, guaranteeing at least a silver in the bag.
Update - It’s a silver for Lee.
We have a world class swimming facilities, the National Aquatic Centre in Bukit Jalil, which is a perfect place for our swimmers to prepare for the Olympic Games in August.
The dire news is that the Malaysian swimmers won’t be able to use it on usual routines, but have to let the Australian national swimming squad to use it for acclimatisation process instead. [Thestar]
Not blaming the Aussies, they showed vision in renting the facility in 2005, that’s what a proper government related bodies should do… I call it proper planning. It would be nice if they could share the pool with Malaysians, but it’s their call, and it was us who gave them the rights.
Questions are, who were responsible for making the deal at the first place? Did the management of The National Sports Complex and National Sports Institute checked the schedule before agreeing the deal with the Aussies? What’s the excuse of not anticipating that our Olympic squad will be using the facility at the peak of preparation for the Olympic Games.
It’s not like Malaysians are having good chances to win a medal or two; but we have spend millions of ringgits and the swimmers and coaches have probably been working hard for the prime event… the least they should have is a proper training facility at ease, and yet someone flopped it needlessly.
And guess what, no heads will roll at the end of the day. We have heard of government wanting to cut off corruption and misconduct… but we have rarely heard of people taking responsibility (or be held responsibility) for the wrong things that they have done.
Update - the Aussies are willing to share the pool, thanks for that.
Tourism Minister Datuk Azalina Othman Said and Youth & Sports Minister Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob are calling for Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir’s resignation as chairman of the Sepang International Circuit (SIC), citing the post as a government appointment.
Mokhzani, who quit Umno on May 21 following in his father and former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s footsteps, had insisted he would hold on to the post as there was no directive from Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad or the Finance Ministry asking him to leave.
SIC is a subsidiary of Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad, which is controlled by the government through Khazanah Holding. [Bernama]
Interesting call, Azalina and Ismail. So, what’s next? All the executive posts of GLCs, government offices, civil services, police force, armed forces blah blah must be hold by Umno members is it?
The reason why we started privatisation of companies is to separate those entities from political influences and to operate at their own in a corporate environment. What’s the point of operating SIC as a corporate if the politicians are going to interfere its operations for political reasons?
Besides, these two Umno fellas might be having their own agenda instead of political frenziness, read more from Rockybru.
Malaysia have failed to meet the criteria and standards set by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Pro-League ad-hoc committee, who have recommended 11 countries for eligibility to field teams in the AFC Champions League next year.
The assessment was based on 10 aspects… organisation, technical standards, attendance, governance, marketing and promotion, business scale, match organisation, media, stadiums and clubs. Of the 21 countries (assessed), Malaysia were ranked 18th. [Thestar]
Seems like Malaysian football is sinking deeper and deeper into nowhere. Set the standard of players aside, I can understand that we simply lack the football talent to succeed at the highest level… but what’s the excuse for Malaysia to be disqualified from the competition?
The standard of our football teams is just one of the criteria, the rest are mostly organisational standards. Our footballing bodies from FAM at the top to clubs management at the bottom level should take the blame for this issue. After millions of dollars being spent into the sport, this is certainly not something that Malaysians are hoping for.
Well, pointing fingers is meaningless now… what we need is to find solutions in rebuilding our local league and improving our standard, but FAM clearly have no solid plans that are executable at the moment. Lots of their programs are ad-hoc and not aiming for any long term revival.
From the current development, the future of Malaysian football is not looking good at all.
The 10th edition of the Petronas Malaysian F1 Grand Prix was successfully held over the weekend, which marks a decade of success of the event. It has been a wonderful decade for the Sepang race, as it has managed to put Malaysia on international map for good reasons.
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen claimed this 2008 title, which also saw BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica finished on the podium… the first podium for the Petronas sponsored team at the ‘home race’.
The 2008 Malaysian F1 might be the last daytime race in Sepang, as race organisers Sepang International Circuit (SIC) is eager to stage their first ever night race as early as 2009, two years ahead of schedule… another kiasu rivalry against Singapore that are going to run the night race in September 2008.
ESPN has apologised to Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) for displaying the wrong FAM logo on Feb 13 during a live telephone call to FAM secretary-general Datuk Azzuddin Ahmad.
The parodied FAM logo
During the Sportscenter Asia broadcast on Wednesday, ESPN showed a parodied-logo instead of the official FAM logo.
It’s reported by Utusan that the staff from Sportscenter Asia had searched for the logo online and had mistaken that as the official logo.
I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw the ‘logo’ on Jeffrey’s website… how on earth could the ESPN staff mistaken this as the official logo? The parodi-ness is blatantly obvious.
FAM website under construction &
Malaysia web development
FAM website has been under construction for quite some time, and the ESPN staff obviously couldn’t get the logo from an official source. The website would only be back by March 1 according to Azzuddin.
It is a shame that FAM’s website has to be taken down for weeks for reconstruction. This actually exposed a serious issue on how incompetence some web development companies in Malaysia are and how some Malaysian websites are poorly managed.
I don’t count myself as an IT expert, but if I were to handle the FAM’s website reconstruction, the website shouldn’t be down for more than 2 hours; worst case scenario… 48 max. All the contents building and testing should have been done without taking down the site.
I don’t want to bore you with the technicalities… another prime example of poor website management can be seen from the Parliament official website where Chua Soi Lek is still listed as our health minister despite resigning for almost 2 months following his sex scandal.
Congrats to Malaysian women singles shuttler Wong Mew Choo for her victory at the China Open on Sunday (Nov 25).
It is Mew Choo’s first career open title. Her victory is a huge boost to Malaysian women badminton players, as it shows that Malaysian female shuttlers can do as well as the guys.
Hope that Mew Choo will continue to improve her play, and hope that her success would encourage more girls to exile in sports.
Opposition politicians and some bloggers have been heavily criticising the Monsoon Cup which is set to run on 27 Nov - 2 Dec 2007 in Pulau Duyong, Terengganu… but is Monsoon Cup really that bad?
FYI, Monsoon Cup is the last stage for this season’s World Match Racing Tour, a Grade 1 event recognized by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF). Although sailing is not popular in Malaysia, the event is not as insignificant as some politicians claimed.
I can remember the criticism about organising F1 in Malaysia prior to the first race in Sepang, but organising the F1 race is probably one of the best decisions Malaysia has made in the 90s. The return is not just the financial gain during the race, but involves global branding which could help attracting foreign visitors (and probably investors) constantly.
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World number 1 and 2 tennis players Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will play against retired legend Pete Sampras and Frenchman Richard Gasquet respectively in series of exhibition matches in Malaysia in November.
The games are part of Malaysia’s 50th Merdeka celebration.
Federer will play Sampras on Nov 22, while Nadal vs Gasquet on Nov 20; both matches will be held in Melawati Stadium, Shah Alam. The tickets’ price is ranged from RM83-RM443.
The Malaysian hockey team defeated Japan on Sunday (Sep 9) to clinch third place in the 7th Asia Men’s Hockey Championship in Chennai.
It is Malaysia’s best achievement in this Asian-level tournament since 1994 when they finished third in Hiroshima, Japan. [Bernama]
Malaysians often criticized our sport teams when we are doing poorly, but are stingy in praises when we are doing well… we need to change this mindset, really.
Congratulations to our men hockey team. Work hard and continue achieving good success.
