The Spirit Of Unsportsmanship

I was watching the Olympics the other day when they showed those 4 x 100m events of the past years, and suddenly I was reminded of my own sad, terrible tragedy which took place more than a decade ago...

I was a bright-eyed, naive and innocent boy then (and still am now), and it was the annual School Sports Day. We'd specially rented the Bukit Jalil Staduim for this special event. Apart from the mundane long jumps, high jumps, and goodness-knows-what-else-would-jump, there was the 4 x 100m relay, with four gold medals to be awarded to the winning team.

Tensions ran high, naturally. I was one of those asked to represent the Red Team, for whatever the reason was known only to God. I wasn't particularly a person you would call a fast sprinter. I mean, I even had enough difficulty running after the ice-cream truck, and they're just placing me in there? They'd probably have more luck predicting the 4 winning lottery digits. Granted, all I had was height, and I might have excelled better in NBA, but that's another story for another fine, sunny day.

On that particular day, the four of us were asked to get ready, and the coach handed us our team uniforms - nothing more than simple cotton t-shirts tinged with a healthy dose of Communist Red. I loathe that shirt. Don't even get me started on the sporting event logo. Fast forward 2 hours, and there we were, all set on the sprint track. With four teams comprising four runners each plus the respective coaches made around twenty-plus individuals on the grounds.

As each team huddled together to receive their last words of wisdom, our coach broke the news to us: there was going to be a reshuffling of each runner's position. I was scheduled to run third, but was now placed last, due to an unwise decision made by our bumbling coach. She reckoned that the guy originally schedule to run after my turn would give our team the upper hand should he run first in front of me. Big mistake. No sooner than that, all of us got ready to sweat it out and burn rubber on the grids, and perhaps tear a hamstring or two for those unfortunate enough to get it. As I was in fourth position, there was nothing much that I could do except sit down, and prayed that my first runner had taken enough steroids not to fall behind the rest.

With the shot fired, it boiled down to a test of strength versus will, muscle against muscle, and the doped versus the undoped while the crowd went wild. Our guy made the mark and he passed the baton to the second dude. The latter chalked up a pretty good record too and the baton made its way into the third fella's hand. He was off like a speeding bullet. That was when all the innocence of my childhood began fading away, and the ugly realities of life started to beat the snot out of me.

At first, things looked good, but then later somehow Mr. Third Runner seemed to slow down, and the remaining two sprinters from opposing teams quickly caught up with him, eventually passing him by. By the time I received the baton, all three runners from the other teams were already almost halfway around the bloody track. I tried my best to keep pace with them, but it was no use. I even tried to visualize that ice-cream truck in front of me to allow myself some encouragement to run faster, but even the phantom ice-cream man, with his neatly-pressed white uniform complemented with a black bow tie, poked his head out of the imaginary ice-cream truck and laughed at me.

By now, the three earlier sprinters had already completed the race, and were sitting around the track resting their worn-out muscles, eyes on me. I was only at the halfway mark, no thanks to the third guy's inept running skills. What could've turned out to be my finest hour now lay in shambles, as the crowd, now impatient, started booing me in unison. They were obviously tired of waiting for the race to end, and the sight of one lone runner going for broke amused them, or probably angered them, or both. I don't know. To be booed is one thing, and to be faulted for other people's ineptness and idiocy is another.

I finally reached the finishing line, and for a moment there I swore I caught a glimpse of my coach giving me her disapproving stare. What did I do wrong anyway? But there was no time for that as my tired muscles, poorly-trained for this event, eventually gave way and I tumbled down onto the track. No one came to my aid nor help me up to the locker room. Those pretty young female nurses which were abundant all around the stadium one moment were gone the next. I was left to simmer and bake under the afternoon sun. So much for taking one for the team. The next year, requests for me to make an appearance for the sprinting team once more were met with replies of "Get lost!" and "You'll never take me alive!", echoed by me.