Like Sivasangari, show bravery, courage to succeed

 

Sivasangari Subramaniam. She has another name – Dhill. She might as well be called that, because in Tamil that word means bravery, courage, pluckiness, fearlessness, and anything else that means valiantly confronting adversity in its face.

I recall decades ago witnessing this “dhill phenomena ” powering 18-year-old female gymnast, Kerri Strug, at the Georgia Dome in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. She had sustained a painful third-degree lateral strain on her left ankle and two torn ligaments after her first vault.

Looking at this demure girl who was barely five feet tall, everyone thought the fight was over for the US team.

But to everyone’s surprise, a pleasant one for the Americans, this plucky girl fought back the pain, ran, jumped and vaulted to help the USA all-around team to the gold, ending four decades of Russian and Eastern European dominance.

Truly, there is no such thing as a disabled body, only a disabled mind. Coincidentally, this was the tagline of the 1996 Paralympics.

Back home in June last year, the dhill phenomena manifested itself in the form of our squash sensation Sivasangari, powering her to confront the outcome of a career-threatening car crash that had left her with broken bones in her face and more precariously, in her neck. A lorry had hit the car she was travelling in along the Maju Highway, driven by a friend.

It had ruled her out of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham the following month, and there was fear in the fraternity that she would never play again.

But according to psaworldtour.com, after two surgeries in two weeks, the prognosis was more positive, and Sivasangari was presented with two options: undergo one more surgery on her neck which would likely be successful but could cause lasting mobility issues, or manage the pain and let the injury heal on its own.

True to form, she picked the second alternative, did not waste time feeling sorry for herself, fought off the discomfort of hard neck braces, immersed herself in physiotherapy, and worked furiously and single-mindedly towards one target – getting back into competition.

And she did exactly that. She got back onto the court this January, seven months after the crash, ready and hungry for competitive action. Reinforced by her victory over fate’s test of character, Sivasangari faced her opponents in the Hangzhou Asian Games in September with renewed confidence, and bravery to have the women’s singles and team gold medals swinging brightly, from that surgery-fixed neck.

Sivasangari has shown what the dhill phenomena is capable of when you turn on its power. Several Malaysians have already had the privilege of experiencing its adrenalin pumped-up effects in their lives, too.

In 2011, Malaysia’s most celebrated cyclist, Azizulhasni Awang, when confronted with defeat and failure, summoned up this phenomenal force at the Track World Cup at the Manchester Velodrome.

He was involved in a high-speed crash that caused a 20cm splinter from the velodrome track to pierce through his calf. It was horrifying, with the Siberian pine splinter skewering his calf. The pain was unbearable.

But this brave Malaysian picked himself up, mounted his bike and wobbled across the finish line, in third place in the keirin event for the bronze. It was dhill that took him across the line.

The “Pocket Rocketman”, as he is called, missed the World Cup the following month, but bolstered by that act of bravery, Azizul went on to win the 2017 UCL Track Cycling World gold, and the silver in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Following that in May last year, the 35-year-old told a press conference that he had to go for corrective heart surgery in Australia for anomalous aortic origin of the right coronary artery (AAORCA). He skipped the Commonwealth Games and the recent Asian Games, and is hell-bent on a shot at glory in Paris 2024.

What I am trying to espouse here is that we, Malaysians, are not a cowardly race. There is that dhill in each and every one of us, just waiting to be summoned.

I am calling out Malaysian sportsmen and women, coaches, and NSAs for their failure to gift the nation an Olympic gold, despite being in the hunt since the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Summon the dhill that has remained latent.

I am calling out the FA of Malaysia — a member of FIFA since 1954 for its failure in qualifying for the finals of a FIFA World Cup. Reach out from within the necessary courage.

On a slightly lesser scale, the BA of Malaysia need to be called out for going on vacation since winning the Thomas Cup in 1992 at Stadium Negara in Kuala Lumpur. Perhaps, the Thomas Cup is no longer the holy grail for Malaysians, as we have already claimed it five times.

But, having said that, the nation nevertheless is expecting its first Olympic gold to come from badminton, a low-picking fruit compared to traditional sports like athletics, cycling, swimming, fencing and gymnastics. These five traditional sports have featured in every single Olympics since its inception in 1896 at its birthplace in Athens.

And therein lies the predicament. Our quest for an Olympic gold seem to rest worryingly and solely on the overbearing shoulders of one sport, badminton.

In this context, national prospectors of Malaysian sport, would further narrow it down to former badminton world champions and 2020 London Olympics bronze medallists, Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik, for gold in Paris 2024.

Psychologists will tell you that, with all things remaining virtually equal, what will get an athlete across the finish line ahead of the rest is hunger and mental strength. But when we factor in the bravery element, the dhill factor, the odds are more likely to change in our favour.

For, we have witnessed many occasions when our athletes, despite being bolstered by their will and hunger for glory, freeze right before opponents who, records would show, are more formidable.

The 1992 Thomas Cup team, not given a chance, had the will and the hunger, but it was their courage, the dhill in them, that brought down the intimidating great wall of China in their semi-final, and seemingly invincible Indonesia in the final.

Bravery was also what drove the victorious 1967 Thomas Cup team, who played under very hostile crowd conditions at the Istora Senayan in Jakarta, in what turned out to be the most controversial match in the history of the tournament.

The crowd hostility continued off the court after the match was abandoned, and the Malaysian players had to be snuck out of their hotel at 3am, to board a flight back to Kuala Lumpur. All that was dhill, in its essence.

The moral of this story – preceding Paris 2024, which is just six months away – is to never underestimate the power of the dhill. Not just in sports, but in other aspects of our Malaysian lives. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.