Thank You, Lee Chong Wei

As Rio Olympics 2016 has come to the end, many of us including myself are still feeling sympathize for our contingent Malaysia in missing to clinch the first gold medal. Nevertheless, we have achieved the best results, which are 4 silvers and 1 bronze throughout the history of Malaysia. During this Olympics season, I had been waking up as early as 4.30am (almost every day) just to show my support towards Team Malaysia. I never want to miss out any matches that they played as Olympic is the biggest and highest prestige tournament in the world and it only happens once in every four years. Overall, I am very satisfied with the results. I am truly proud that they did not disappoint any one of us. Their hard work and determination are praiseworthy. On this post, I will mainly focus on Chong Wei as he influences me a lot in my career.

A message that I received from Chong Wei after his final match simply made me tear again after London Olympics 2012 Final. I know how disappointed he really is at this moment, but everything is over now. I just got to admit that we did not have the luck in this prestigious competition. He indeed had a stronger mindset, better condition and greater ability in competing this final match; nevertheless, Chen Long was a step ahead of him and he did better than Chong Wei. I accept the fact that Chong Wei is once again a Silver Medalist of Olympics, but I really feel deeply sorry and sad to him that he had no chance to achieve his dream as an Olympic champion.

Becoming a gold medalist has always been Chong Wei’s ultimate goal all these while. He continues to train harder from day to night just to ensure that the piece of gold medal belongs to him during this Rio Olympic. Unfortunately, fortune smiles belong to Chen Long this time. Just when I thought he failed two times in finals against Lin Dan and successfully overcame Lin Dan in semi final this year, he would have better chance to clinch his first gold medal as proverb always says ‘third time’s the charm,’ I really never thought Chen Long would become the ‘spoiler’ this time. When the last match point belonged to Chen Long, every Malaysian’s heart sank. We felt sad not because he lost his games, but he could not achieve his ultimate goal no matter how much he had given out. The world seriously owes him an Olympic gold medal. I see nothing that he does not deserve at least a gold medal in Olympic after uncountable times of failures.

I have been supporting Chong Wei ever since I came across the achievements of team Malaysia in the arena of badminton. I could honestly tell that, as much as I support any other Malaysia players, Chong Wei is still the one I have been endlessly supporting by sacrificing my time to watch every single match he plays and continuously update myself with his latest news. Starting from collecting newspapers of his news, watching him plays in live to now purchasing every collection of his magazines and autobiographies, he is indeed a role model I am always looking up for. As a hardcore fans of Chong Wei, I understand how much struggles and pains he had to go through, how much stress he had to bear with, and how much bad luck he had been to. I really respect and salute him a lot as his determination, hard work and perseverance to contribute the gold medal to the country are so strong. He is fighting so hard to achieve the best of what he is wishing for all these while albeit failing for numerous times in both big and small tournaments. Having to accept the failure of 3 times in Olympics Finals and 4 times in World Championship Finals, who else will still be giving out themselves and continue standing on the court to keep on trying? I am sure many of us still remember the hardest time when Chong Wei failed his doping test, and was banned by Badminton World Federation. That was a period where he lost his status of World No.1 and ended up at ranking 180. Nonetheless, he remained his daily training and never gave up until today. Thus far, he is the only one who bears this stressful life, not for himself and his family, but for the whole Malaysians.

Thank you, Chong Wei. You have nothing to say sorry. If you were disappointing us with three silver medals, I would say three silver medals are far better than a gold and getting all 3 silver medals isn’t an easy job. Head up and be proud of these achievements, as I believe that it will take some times for the next representatives to achieve these outstanding results. Don’t cry because it’s a silver, smile because it’s an honor. I hope to see you back on court again soon.

While I am having a totally different career from Chong Wei, I still take Chong Wei as the most respectful and influential role model. Every time when I feel like giving up, I re-watch back some interviews from him. I ask myself, “ Is Chong Wei’s life tougher or my life is tougher? When Chong Wei has not given up himself, am I allowed to?” His indomitable fighting spirit is indeed my source of inspiration that leads me to who I am today. I was not born naturally with outstanding skills and broad knowledge, but Chong Wei’s spirit of not easily giving up transform me to who I am today. From primary school to secondary school to first year of college, my results were just above average. Nevertheless, I changed my mindset, set a goal and made Chong Wei as my inspirational person. Today, I successfully graduated my college life with distinctions. I wish to share this proud moment to Chong Wei because of his determination; I had successfully encountered every barrier and failure of my college life.