61. Chasing that elusive first gold

I thought that this could be the year. After all our neighbours Vietnam and Singapore won their first ever Olympic gold medals, so too did Kosovo, Fiji and Puerto Rico.

So I was quietly hopeful that this would be Malaysia’s year too. We have never won gold at the Olympics before. Before 2008 we had never even won a medal of any kind.

By Thursday we had already won two silver and one bronze, and we were in the badminton finals of the Men’s doubles on Friday and the Men’s singles on Saturday.

As a nation our collective hope was on the Men’s singles.

Dato’ Lee Chong Wei is the world number one and had beaten the world number 2 in the semi-finals. The same person who beat him in the finals of the 2008 & 2012 Olympics. Things were looking hopeful.

Alas it wasn’t to be. Although both the Men’s doubles team and Dato’ Lee Chong Wei did Malaysia proud we were unable to win that elusive gold. We came close though, the Men’s doubles team were on the verge of winning the gold medal twice before the Chinese pair fought back.

I’m not sad though. I have hope. Especially after seeing those other nations win their first gold medals. Maybe Tokyo 2020 will be our year.