Badminton: The Jaguh Kampung Conundrum

Malaysian badminton is in a state of affairs that can only be described as 'who gives a flying fuck?'.

It used to be that we would cheer our shuttlers on at every tournament. The high point of it all was during the 1992 Thomas Cup when almost the entire nation was cheering the team along, and when Cheah Soon Kit and Soo Beng Kiang (or was it Yap Kim Hock?) won, the whole nation rejoiced together with them.

Fast forward to now, and the national badminton players are all pretty low-key now. Frankly, not many people care about the local badminton scene now. Sure, we still have fans turning up at stadiums to cheer the Malaysians on, but nowhere is the hype over badminton as high as it was when we just won the Thomas Cup.

This is just a personal opinion, mind you. I love the sport as much as anyone, but I prefer playing the game rather than watching it. I used to idolized Zhao Jianhua, and loved watching players like Yang Yang and Han Jian playing, because their strokes were frankly brilliant.

But now... I just don't like watching it anymore. It's getting boring.

Anyway, back to Malaysian badminton. Lee Chong Wei just won the Malaysian Open. Well, congratulations to him for successfully defending the crown. But like many have said, he cannot be considered a world-class player until he starts winning OUTSIDE of Malaysia.

Rashid Sidek used to be like that also. Couldn't win any tournaments outside of Malaysia, but when Malaysian Open comes around, wahlau, win every game.

Is it just me, or do Malaysian athletes lack the mentality to perform outside Malaysia? Sure, Hafiz won the All-England some years back, but frankly, I think that was a lucky one-off. What has he achieved since then?

Face it, Malaysian badminton is in the doldrums. Politics, in-fighting and plain laziness and arrogance is proving to be its downfall. If you take a look at other sports, we're not doing so well eighter, mostly because of the SAME reasons.

Thank God then, for our squash players and bowlers. At least we know that Malaysians actually CAN be good at sports. there MAY yet be hope for us after all...