One to many promises, OCM

THE vibes around the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) these days hint that "continual improvement" promised as recently as the body's annual general assembly on May 26 this year remains a promise.

Not much has changed and "improvement" comes in the consultative role that OCM has now attached itself to.

In fact we find the OCM has deteriorated into a body that now pleads for publicity on behalf of under-performing national sports associations (NSAs), which are their affiliates.

If not, more serious issues would have been discussed during OCM president Tunku Imran Tuanku Ja'afar's annual luncheon with sports editors and senior sports writers yesterday.

It was surprising for this writer at least, to note that Tunku Imran was keen to address the lack of publicity for lesser sports and channels through which results for their events could be publicised.
The OCM is keen to find ways by which NSAs could better transmit their results to the Press, they'd like for more emphasis to be given to local sports and for 'minor' sports to be also given their share of publicity.

For this, everything between the improvement of websites and even crash courses for sportswriters held in tandem with NSAs were brought up.





Websites? Just look at OCM's website and make your own evaluation as to how effective and informative it is. Most NSAs don't even have websites and those that do are mostly inconsistent in maintaining them.

Also surprising was the notion that the core of OCM office bearers impressed that athletes such as badminton player Lee Chong Wei should be treated as heroes.

Tunku Imran went as far as stating that Chong Wei "is one of the better players we've had in recent years, but the Press seem to only want an All England, world title or gold medal."

"He wins some tournaments. And to finish second in a draw of 32 (as he did in the Hong Kong Open), I would say is also an achievement," added Tunku Imran.


But let us not get carried away with these insignificant issues.

Yes, they are insignificant issues considering the fact that they have been brought up alongside some core OCM office bearers who've been in place for enough time to have sorted this out decades ago.

We would have thought that as we approached an Olympic year, the OCM's emphasis would be more towards that.

Titles, world champions, Olympic medals? The OCM forgets that we are Malaysians too. And just like every other Malaysian, we want champions, not over-hyped runners-up.

NST - Comment by Arnaz M. Khairularnaz@nst.com.my