with regards to your statement

“And I have always maintained that the COE has the facilities to help athletes to be in a state of ‘Excellence’. Now, if only our local athletes can be more easily pleased. “

I believe that most of us are easily pleased and we are not demanding. we just want the necessary support for us to survive.

However, i would like to point out that certain people do things for the sake of doing. In fact, they are merely doing it to show the boss that their brains are actually functioning. hence, for the peanuts that they contribute, the athletes get monkeys out of it.

Hakeem maybe you can tell us if we are really being nutured to be in the state of excellence and if you are easily satisfied.

1. Their coach is based there. I would like to believe the reason you’re training at Sports School right now would be more to do with the fact that your coach is based there than anything else.

2. They don’t have to pay for usage of the facilities. After all, they didn’t fly thousands of miles to pay $2.50 for using a clubfit gym.

3. The climate in Singapore which allows for whole yr round trackwork.

4. The upheaval back in Lebanon.

5. I would also like to work on the assumption that their training stint here is paid for by some other party. When someone else pays for your trip, i do believe you would be less inclined in making demands about your training facilities.

Of course i’m not assuming that all of the above reasons are valid. But they do serve as possible alternatives to the fact that they came ALL THE WAY here because they fell in love with Gombak. Let’s just take your training stint to Germany for example. If the stadiums you trained & competed in were “worse off than Gombak” (cited from your main article), the question is why did you still go?

i agree with u :)

like kenneth said…let’s not let it get personal and try to force ur views onto others.

i think gombak is not good enough to be labelled a COE and you think otherwise.

let’s leave it at that.

wat do we get out of this debate anyway? nothing more than an exchange of views.

ask u smth, how often do u all train at gombak? if the facilities is of concern, then find another stadium to train and call that your “COE”.

Although i hope that those idiots will come here and read watever u all have posted so that they will have an idea of how we feel, that’s not going to happen. -sigh-

I am comparing the COE to the COE’s of those particular sports because they have done so well in recent years, garnering medals for Singapore at the SEA Games, Asian Games and even Commonwealth Games level. For the record, I did not say that their COE’s were sub-standard. I was implying that ours is on par with theirs. And being on par with such accomplised sports, (facilities wise anyway), to me, says alot. I can only hope that people infer correctly what I am trying to say when I write.

To answer your critique on my point about foreigners, I have to point out the obvious fact that if they really think that our Joint is Crap, then why do they come back? And if they’ve already seen our ‘crap’ facilities, why do they then decided to come here for their training camps anyway? I would like to think that our facilities are in fact more than what they need to train at a high level, and I would like to think they are not of the opinion that the COE is not up to scratch.

As you have pointed out, I have been to my fair share of countries. I have seen many athletics training grounds. (this is the reason I wrote the article by the way) And from what I gather, our COE is comparable to many of these places.

I have always maintained that the term ‘Excellence’ in the phrase ‘Center of Excellence’ refers to the performances of the athletes the Center produces. And I have always maintained that the COE has the facilities to help athletes to be in a state of ‘Excellence’. Now, if only our local athletes can be more easily pleased.

Firstly, what’s the point of comparing our COE with that of swimming, silat or other sports? Just because they have sub-standard (according to you) training facilities doesn’t necessarily mean our COE has to tread down that same beaten path. We’re talking about excellence here, just because our facilities are better than a sub-standard training ground doesn’t necessarily accord it an “excellent” status.

A point was raised about how foreigners don’t complain about our COE. Well, simply put, as a guest, you don’t enter someone else’s house and start commenting on how crap his joint is right? Being widely travelled as you are Hakeem, I’m confident that you didn’t tell your gracious German hosts how messed up (according to you once again) their stadiums are and the only reason athletes even compete there is cos of the prize money.

Finally, let’s keep this debate clean guys. I think it’s great that everyone’s airing their views freely and taking more of an interest and ownership in the sport we hold so dear. Just because we’ve got differing views doesn’t mean we gotta make things personal. Let’s keep the gloves on!

why are we talking about COE, facilities and all those craps when our basic support from them is crap? lousy support == low morale == poor showing with watever is available.

we are not going to train there forever, if that place is not suitable then find another stadium. oh well, i don’t really know how does the track affect a runner cos i seldom use the track (but i hate those “soft patches”).

Gombak has sufficient resources to train but something has to be done to the facilities (for i.e resurfacing the track etc). Maybe SAA can take note of that.