Ridhuan Tee roasted over remark on Olympians

PETALING JAYA: Controversial preacher Ridhuan Tee Abdullah has come under fire for saying Malaysian Olympic medal winners are unpatriotic and only compete in sports for monetary rewards.

Rio 2016 chef de mission Tan Sri Mohd Al-Amin Abdul Majid said Tee was being unfair to the athletes.

“They have shed blood and tears for the country,” he said.

The athletes, he added, did their best for the country and monetary rewards were not foremost in their quest for medals.

“The Olympic Games is the highest level for any athlete and the success is attributed to the teamwork and team spirit, and by helping each other to excel,” he said.

In his column in a Malaylanguage daily published on Monday, Ridhuan said sports had become a business and also a means to gain popularity.

He said it was no longer for patriotism and only for show.

He wrote that “ultra- kiasu (mercenary)” athletes competed for monetary rewards rather than for patriotic reasons and thus were driven towards individual sports, rather than sports which required teamwork.

MCA Youth secretary-general Datuk Leong Kim Soon lambasted Tee as an “utmost unpatriotic person” whose “personal subjective and narrow-minded thinking itself poses a problem”. He added sports transcend race and religion.

“Malaysia’s badminton exponents, who coincidentally are ethnic Chinese, united all Malaysians irrespective of race or religion during their semi-final and final matches at the Rio Olympics.

“Malaysians who were kept glued to their television sets cheering for our sportsmen and sportswomen fully embodied the spirit of solidarity when our badminton players were presented with the precious medals,” said Leong.

Olympic Council of Malaysia secretary-general Datuk Low Beng Choo said as far as they were concerned, everyone who went to Rio wanted to do it for the country.

“We knew everyone was there for all the years they had worked hard because they wanted to compete under the Malaysian flag,” she said. Low also regretted that there would always be comments that were in poor taste.

“These people do not understand the sacrifices that have to be put as a Malaysian team to get the results we want,” she said.