Where are the Malaysian Indian athletes?

Note: This posts is to express my views & concern on the declining interest and participation of Malaysian Indian athletes in many sports, that they used to dominate. In no circumstances, I'm implicating or belittling our athletes from other ethnicity who represent Malaysia. No, I'm not writing to end up like the infamous Manoharan Malayalam or Johari Pain.

Olympics, the greatest sports event that had occupied the last 2 weeks of our lives. Almost everywhere we go, we speak or hear about the events, athletes, results and medals. Last weekend the whole euphoria of Olympics is done and dusted.

Malaysia managed to get 1 silver from Dato Lee Chong Wei and another surprise bronze from the diving darling Pandelela Rinong. Thank you very much for putting the nation's name on the medal tally.

I'm not sure, how many of you have seen the list of athletes represented Malaysia in London. These are the athletes participated in London for our country:

There are 29 athletes sent, not 1 from Indian ethnicity. Have we completely lost our sports culture within the community? In the past we used to excel in the following sports:

• athletics (middle & long distance)
• martial arts (taekwondo, karate, judo)
• football
• hockey

Over the years, our athletes have been gradually disappearing from the scene. Up until the late 90s, how many of you remember the Malay Mail Bigwalk, KL marathon, PJ half-marathon etc. dominated by our people? What about hockey, where majority of the players were from Indian & Sikh community. At least quarter of the football team was our people. Martial arts, none other than our heroes.

Our community have been working hard and winning medals for the country, both locally and at international meets like SEA Games, Asian Games even in Commonwealth games. Who can forget great names like Dr. M. Jegathesan (athletics), late Dato Punch Gunalan (badminton), M. Ramachandran & Munusamy (mid distance), Ponniah and his family (karate), Santokh Singh, Arumugam, Shebby, Gunalan, Jeyakanthan, Ramon Regunathan etc. (football), V. Subramaniam (walking) and many other illustrious sportsmen in many events.

But now, we can hardly see our people in mainstream sports. In hockey only S. Kumar & Kelvinder, in football only 3 to 4 players, all road races now are conquered by african runners, martial arts are not being promoted much. Where are all our sportsmen? What happened to our interest and ability?

My assumption on the this slow and steady decline is attributed to many causes. 

• Parent's focus on 'education' and limiting kid's participation in sports at school. 
• Kids are preoccupied with exams and TV, computer games etc.
• Good talents from school are sidelined from advancing to district or state level competitions. 
• Decades of neglect, no recognition and reward for sportsmen. (who can forget Spiderman Arumugam getting his Datoship almost 20 YEARS after his untimely death!!).
• No funding, support from Indian corporate sponsors for sports teams/bodies.
• Retired (good) sportsmen are not absorbed as official, technical committee, coaches etc. for youth development programs.
• Gov's focus for glamour sports, which yields advertising revenue rather than world-class sportsmen.
• No systematic development assistance, initiative by political party / sporting authorities.

I'd like to relate one incident which I witnessed almost 20 years ago. I was sitting at Maha Mariamman Temple KL after tuition class. Behind me, 2 individuals discussing about sports:

Person 1: I've been running middle distance from school, Uni, state till national, but until now no recognition

Person 2: It happens only to us

Person 1: I've won medals in SUKMA & SEA games, but see no future without proper training and support

Person 1: After Uni, quit running and start working (polepeh parpom), no point sacrificing future for sports

I turned around to see who are these people, to my utter disbelief, Person 2 was the ex-coach for walking Mr. V.S. (attached with Telekom) and Person 1 is A.M, national athlete for middle distance!!

We do see some pockets of funding like RM530K for Tamil school football, but without grassroot development and proper support, athletes from our community will further disappear from the scene, very soon. I'm dismayed.