Our Mod Squad

I am also proud to have assisted our own Malaysian badminton team while I was there. On one occasion I went to the Malaysian Camp as a last minute substitute for a Team Analyst whom I had befriended in Athens to present some material. Before long I was hooking up a projector as fast as I could amidst encouraging words of “don’t kan cheong” (don’t panic) from Yap the coach and the players. All of a sudden it had seemed that the plug would not fit in the socket anymore and the wires were not long enough for anything. Call me star-struck if you will! When you have the world no. 1 doubles pair (Tan Fook - Wan Wah), Chong Wei, Chong Ming and Chew Choon Eng and the coach all sitting around impatiently in the room, fooling about with rackets (were those tennis rackets?) you just knew you had better hurry up. And that was the first time I had ever used a Mac! Fortunately I was not about to make a fool of myself that fateful day and in the end I even got a personal word of thanks from everybody – man I was so filled with pride! The other cool things of being a volunteer are the free public transport and being decked in Adidas from head to toe (well almost, no shoes were provided). The free transport coupled with waived entrance fees for volunteers into museums and historical sites like the Acropolis made it very convenient to travel around Athens! As for food I was among the luckiest of the lot. Working in the Village entitled you to a daily all-you-can-eat buffet in a tent like canteen, which also served the athletes albeit in a separated area which even included a McDonald’s. The downside – volunteers do not get free entry into spectator venues as most people believe, unless of course you had the proper (high level) of accreditation. So I was elated when I got to watch the rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony free of charge.

As expected security issues had affected the Games drastically for the audience. Unlike the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games for example, in Athens you were barred entry into the compound of the main stadium unless you had tickets to an event there.

Looking back on our contingent’s performance in Athens I think we had some gutsy performances although none garnered medals. Brian Nickson, Chong Wei and our women’s badminton doubles pair Pei Tty - Eei Hui were most impressive in their events. They certainly gave hope that the Malaysian fire is still burning! However we must really take heed from the Greeks. With a population of just 10 million they had still managed a string of golds!