It's time for athletes to start anew for fresh challenges

Ahead of their departure for South Korea, the Thai delegation set an initial target of winning only 10 gold medals after assessing the capability of athletes of each sports association. However, the Thai athletes turned things around by showing tremendous resilience and spirit to capture 12 gold, seven silver and 28 bronze medal to finish sixth overall and first among the Asean nations.

There are good reasons for our athletes putting up a better showing compared to the previous edition of the Games in Guangzhou, China four years ago. Age is often considered a factor when we map out long-term preparation of our athletes. It might be all right to say that age is just a number when we talk about people in general but when it comes to professional sports, age always plays a vital role.

In Guangzhou, our athletes finished a below-par ninth overall with 11 gold, after we failed to replace about-to-retire athletes and those retired with talented youngsters. We did not have a plan B, plain and simple. Lesson learned, it is high time we put the plan into action.

Our sailors, for instance, made their mark in the Guangzhou Games, claiming three gold, including one from veteran Damrongsak Vongthim in the Hobie-16, and another one from young Noppakao Poonpat in the girls’ dinghy optimist. In Incheon, Noppakao was the only Thai sailor who retained her gold, while the others failed miserably. It’s one event where old age really counted.

In track and field, an awesome foursome of Laphassaporn Tawoncharoen, Phatsorn Jaksuninkorn, Nongnuch Sanrat and Neeranuch Klomdee had a fantastic run in Guangzhou to hand Thailand the women’s 4x100m relay gold. As circumstances would have it, two sprinters, including Laphassaporn, failed to join the squad in Incheon and the Thai dream of winning gold in the event went up in smoke.

The fiasco is a warning sign to the Athletic Association of Thailand that it’s time for them to look for talented youngsters, train them properly from the beginning and send them for overseas training and competitions. If they set up a long-term plan for youngsters with plenty of potential, they would serve the cause of the Kingdom greatly in international competitions. Thailand, as usual, stamped their authority with a clean sweep of four gold medals in sepak takraw. Although the team’s performances lived up to the expectations of the public, we must remember that it is a non-Olympic sport. We cannot rely on them to fetch gold when we compete in the Olympic Games. The best we can do is to just maintain our dominance in the sport.

To ensure our athletes are adequately prepared for any competition, we need a long-term plan and it needs to be implemented soon so it can bear fruit in the not-too-distant future.