and my honest opinion about it + solutions

SEA Games 2025 was my third SEA Games appearance from 2017 to 2025.

Yet, nothing has changed.

I already know that I am going to get a lot of backlash from this post. So hear me out. I’m not blaming anyone or any organisation. I am very grateful to everyone who made this happen, especially our team manager, who fought through some pretty tough battles but still managed to pull together two teams to send. I am simply describing my experience as an athlete throughout this journey.

I also don’t like to whine or complain, so at the end of my post, I will include some solutions to the problems we faced.

Here we go.

In October of last year, I posted a reel encouraging Malaysians to come support our Malaysian indoor and beach volleyball teams at the SEA Games. That post did well, people got excited, and many wished us luck.

I was also very excited to come back from the US to play for Malaysia. After all, it had been six years since I had last repped Harimau Malaya.

I had it all planned out in my head. I would come back at the beginning of October, so that I could integrate with the team for at least 2-2.5 months before the SEA Games. I was looking forward to busting my ass and working hard every day to prep.

Earlier in the year, I had expressed interest in playing at the SEA Games. I was advised to come back to Malaysia at least for two months to train with the team. I couldn’t just pop in in December and expect to play.

“Okay,” I said. Fully committing to the idea.

I took the semester off, explaining to my university that this was very important for me to go home and play in the games. They allowed me to.

Fast forward to the beginning of October, I’m on a plane back home to Malaysia because in two days I have a tournament in Japan. My partner and I trained for a solid two sessions, and off we were to Japan.

With only two training sessions, I thought we actually did quite well. We did not win, but we played two good games against Japan.

Our main challenge while in Japan was the lack of a coach. Every other team there had a coach. Some of them even had a trainer, a physio, and an assistant coach. We and our men’s team were alone.

I made a post about this after the tournament and received so much backlash for simply voicing the truth. People were so angry that I did not consult them before making such a “rash decision.” In my mind, I did not think that I did anything wrong. I wrote it because I wanted to speak up for our sport, and I hoped we could get some financial support.

I was advised to take the post down, which I did.

action spurred

After coming back from Japan, we had a dead week. I also fell extremely ill. However, no plans had been made about our way forward. Were we still training? What was going on?

Surprisingly, due to my “outrageous” insights, some action was actually taken!

Calls were made. Meetings were set up. We had plans to go to Australia to train for 2 weeks, then to Taiwan, then to Thailand. Or maybe get the Australian coach to come to us? Maybe we could get a Thai coach out here?

Everything sounded too good to be true, which I should have known was the first red flag.

In the end, we couldn’t go to Australia because not all of our visas got approved. As for Taiwan and Thailand, I genuinely don’t know what happened.

What happened?

The next few weeks leading up to the SEA Games were probably the most confusing timeline of any games I have ever participated in. In fact, it was so bizarre that I wrote everything down in my notebook.

1. At this point, we still did not know whether our overseas plans had been cancelled. We were told to all go down to Pahang (that’s where our coach was based) and train there.
2. We drove back and forth between Pahang and Shah Alam weekly, about a 4-hour round trip. This took a toll on our energy levels and our training slots.
3. The rainy season started. The rains were so heavy that our courts would flood. We couldn’t train for a few days. Time was running against us.
4. The men’s team coach quit out of the blue, leaving our management in the dark and stressed out. That took a toll on our women’s side because responsibilities were being shifted.
5. As a result, our coach also quit for a brief period. We had no idea whether our coach was coming back. We did not even know if we were still sending a team for the SEA Games at this point. That was a very stressful week because we did not know what was going on, we had a tournament in Singapore in a few days, and we were not able to train (again).
6. Headed to Singapore for the tournament without a coach (again). We arrived at our hotel at 2am and played at 9am. Miraculously pulled out a bronze medal.
7. After coming back from Singapore, we talked about going to Thailand a week earlier, before the SEA Games, so we could get acclimated to the weather and conditions. I was really looking forward to it because I knew Thailand was a good spot for us to get strong competition.
8. We had about 2-3 weeks left to prep. At this point, I felt like everything was out of my control. Every vision that I had for the games was slipping away. I did my best to stay positive, but I truly found it very challenging.
9. In the end, we did not go to Thailand earlier to train. We were still driving back and forth for 4 hours to train, and I could tell our energy levels were low.
10. Finally, it was time to head to the SEA Games. Surprisingly, our team got a lot of media attention.

highlights

Not all of it was doom and gloom.

• My biggest highlight was taking a set from Thailand in our first game. No one had expected us to pull that off because Thailand had been dominant for so many years. That was also history for Malaysia.
• Our men’s team, despite all the chaos they went through, managed to qualify for the semi-finals, a first in history.
• I had a lot of fun reconnecting with old friends on the Asian circuit and making new friends.
• The Philippines women’s team upset Thailand to take home gold. That was extremely inspiring for me to watch.

conclusion

This was the most confusing SEA Games I have ever taken part in. I don’t regret coming back, though- it was very eye-opening and made me realise a lot of things. I took it more as a lesson in identifying the problems we faced so we can cope better in the future.

It is easy to pin the blame on individuals when things don’t go well. But this whole journey exposed to me that everyone was truly trying their best, but what was wrong? The system.

Everyone was working hard. We knew we wanted to head somewhere, but we did not have the proper system in place to take us there. So what ended up happening was us running in place, trying to patch holes, fix a faulty system, and win a medal. Doesn’t sound like the most promising formula for success to me.

The system

What exactly is wrong with the Malaysian volleyball system? Why is it that we have so many talented players at the state level, yet year after year we struggle to put together a cohesive national team capable of winning a medal internationally?

It actually really only boils down to one thing: money.

Volleyball is not a very popular sport in Malaysia. Hence, we are not funded by the government on many occasions. Sending a team is often self-funded by MAVA (Malaysia Volleyball Association) or, in our case, by our team manager.

It’s a chicken-and-egg cycle. We don’t get funding –> we don’t train year-round –> we lose –> who wants to fund us?

Besides, another major problem we face is that most national team players are either studying or working. You know how it is in Malaysian universities. They are so strict about letting you skip classes and whatnot. As for the people working, how do you expect them to just drop their stable income to do something they are not being paid for? People need to survive, especially in this economy.

As I uncovered these truths, I slowly began to understand.

It is really no one’s fault- our system that has failed us as volleyball athletes in Malaysia.

solution

Which is why finding a solution to this problem is crucial, because how many more years are we going to keep repeating this same cycle of failure before we wake up?

One of my favourite quotes is” The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result.” That’s us, we’re insane.

Funding is the biggest issue that plagues most sports in Malaysia, not just volleyball. I know that water polo, figure skating, equestrian, and Kabaddi face the same problems, and I’m sure many other sports do too.

Which is why I am advocating for a shift in funding. I recently found out that the USOPC (US Olympic and Paralympic Committee) is not at all supported by the federal government! They collect funds from donations, wealthy individuals, and corporations.

Could our Malaysian sports system perhaps slowly shift to a similar structure? I think it would significantly benefit many smaller sports to get more money pumped into them, which would be great for growth, exposure, and grassroots development.

This has been a long post. I will stop here for now, but will continue exploring ideas for developing sports in Malaysia in future posts!