Not-so-great Ending

It was a not-so-great end to a wonderful weekend. First, Dato' Lee Chong Wei appeared lethargic in what could have been his third All-England title in five years. He was clearly not in his best form, and quite rightly, was beaten by Cheng Long in straight set.

Then, I took a nap and set my alarm for then Man United-Chelsea match. It was already the second half when I woke up, and I caught Chelsea pegging United back from two goals behind. We were lucky that we did not get beat. At least there would be a return leg at Stamford Bridge. So, it could've been worst ....

Well Done Great Sir

We couldn't ask for more than an honest effort. And we certainly got that aplenty from our legend, Datuk Lee Chong Wei. Well Sir, it was unfortunate that you played in the same era as one of the great ever in Lin Dan. You have given us great joy and excitement. And I was pretty sure that was what the Olympics stood for. A good honest effort, from good honest athletes.

Again, it came down to belief. And I think we all realised that if Chong Wei were ever able to win the gold medal, he should have clinched it in the second set. Letting Lin Dan back in was his downfall, and once Lin Dan smelt blood, there was no turning back. Despite that, Ching Wei did not capitulate. He kept on fighting. The bad line call at 8-5 played a role, and Lin Dan capitalised by winning six of the next seven points.

I was watching the medal ceremony as I was blogging this. He was in tears, and I could understand why.

Datuk Lee Chong Wei, we salute you!

LCW, FTW!

I was hoping to catch the Lee Chong Wei - Simon Santoso match while waiting for admissions, but it started later than expected. I ended up driving back home right after seeing my last patient. When I got to the apartment, the match had already ended. Chong Wei won straight set. Great results as everyone was still concerned about his injured knee. I guessed he recovered in time.

Dato' LCW, we salute you!

Another gutsy performance by our Datuk, but yet again he came up short. This time by the finest of margins. He could have easily taken the Championship at 21-20, but it wasn't to be. He tried. And he again made us proud. The question now is who to fill his shoes when he finally call it a day?

The rest of the Malaysian contingent has been disappointing, especially the Koo-Tan partnership which carried the nation's hopes in the doubles. Apart from them, we had nothing much to show for in the major competitions.

Time to take stock, learn and look to the future. I didn't think Chong Wei would be the force he was today after next summers' Olympics. He had almost single-handedly carried the nation's hope for the past few years. And he did us proud. We had to get the next generation of players to step up to the plate and be counted.

So, here's to Chong Wei. Well done. A true Malaysian hero!

Rais Yatim

I had a lot of comments when I made the tweet about Rais Yatim while scrambling to catch the scores for the recent Thomas Cup semi-final encounter between Malaysia and China - the one when Lee Chong Wei was thought a lesson by the all-dancing, half-naked Lin Dan. I was actually in the car, being driven up to Kuala Kangsar. I tried listening on the radios for radio commentary on any of the RTM channels, or even some sort of update if possible. Alas … there was none!

And this was the semi-finals when Malaysia eventually lost, but the point was in this day and age, information is a commodity and access to them were taken for granted. Therefore I resorted to twitter and what I got was point-by-point update of the score in almost real time. Let me repeat it again - RTM radio = no commentary or result update - twitter = real-time feed complete with shouts and the occasional swearing. Big difference there, and certainly not acceptable for 2010. To make the matter worst, only in January 2010, Datuk Seri Utama Rais Yatim, our Information, Communications and Culture Minister proclaimed that twitter was a bad cultural influence. I do agree with that to a certain extend so I was not criticising him for making such statement. The problem is, he should have come up with a viable alternative, so that those with real hunger for information have a venue to subscribe to. This made the statement, which was possibly well-meaning appear prejudiced and lack of insight. Perhaps my thoughts can be succinctly expressed more eloquently by Niki Cheong in his blog entry here. Happy reading!