The mother of Malaysia’s badminton family

There was a moment in the 1992 Thomas Cup badminton final when Dr Hasmah Ali could do little but pray.

Malaysia had waited 25 years for the trophy. Now one doubles rubber stood between the country and the cup.

Cheah Soon Kit and Soo Beng Kiang were on court under immense pressure against Indonesia’s Ricky Subagja and Rexy Mainaky.

In the stands, Hasmah, in her red-and-white baju kurung, raised her hands in prayer.

What the moment did not show was what she had done before they walked onto court.

She knew Soon Kit and Beng Kiang were not seeing eye to eye.

So she spoke to them. Separately.

She told Soon Kit there was no better partner for him than Beng Kiang. Then she told Beng Kiang the same thing.

They went onto court together and won the decisive match 15-12, 10-15, 15-8. Malaysia beat Indonesia 3-2 to lift the Thomas Cup for the fifth time.

Hasmah died yesterday aged 100. For more than two decades, she was BAM’s patron, but her place in Malaysian badminton was never defined simply by the title.

It was marked by the relationship she built with the players. Her job, as she saw it, was to make sure the players remained a team.

“I never got involved with the technical aspects of the sport. I left that to the coaches,” she said years later.

When she revisited the 1992 triumph at the launch of Juara Tangkis Tun Dr Siti Hasmah in 2019, the memories were still powerful enough to bring her to tears.

“I get emotional and start tearing every time I revisit the year (1992) when we last won the Thomas Cup,” she said.

“I will never forget that moment because these players were like my children and they saw me as their mother.”

Then came the part that explained her intervention with Soon Kit and Beng Kiang.

“And as a mother, it was my duty to keep them united.”

The former champions around her were older now, many with white hair, but the emotion had not faded.

She was seeing not simply the men who had won Malaysia one of its most celebrated sporting prizes, but the young players she had watched grow together.

That feeling was mutual.

Former national players asked what Hasmah meant to them personally during their years representing Malaysia gave remarkably similar answers.

“Like a mother.” “So comforting.” “So gracious.” “So charming.”

They also remembered how her presence lifted them, from training sessions to match days. Her encouragement made them feel supported and motivated, and they believed those words played a significant part in how they performed.

For Soon Kit and Beng Kiang, what she told them before the 1992 final stayed with them when they walked onto court.

Sometimes, before the biggest match of a player’s life, what he needs is someone to remind him that the man on the court beside him is not the enemy, but the partner he must trust.

Hasmah had spent more than two decades as BAM patron before stepping down in 2007.

Her interest in badminton also extended beyond the national team. Through Bakti, she supported efforts to nurture young talent, helping create opportunities for the next generation to develop in the sport.

But it was the national players who occupied a special place in her memory.

She remembered their triumphs, their disappointments and, perhaps most importantly, the relationships that held a team together.

The 1992 triumph was also a landmark year for Malaysian badminton at the Olympics, with Rashid Sidek winning bronze when the sport made its debut at Barcelona.

But for Hasmah, the Thomas Cup remained particularly close to her heart.

She had watched the players carry a nation’s expectations into that final. She had also understood that medals and trophies were ultimately won by people who had to trust one another.

Her care for badminton did not end when her formal association with BAM did.

On Jan 13, 2020, she visited Japanese world No 1 Kento Momota at Putrajaya Hospital after he was injured in a road crash hours after winning the Malaysia Masters.

Hasmah was no longer BAM patron. She had no formal obligation to be there. She went anyway.

It was consistent with the way the players had experienced her: less as a figure of authority than as someone who cared enough to show up.

That is perhaps why, years after her time at BAM had ended, the former players found it so easy to describe what she had meant to them.

They did not speak first about titles, tournaments or her position as patron.

They spoke about how she made them feel.

Like a mother.

And to the generation of Malaysian shuttlers who knew her that way, that was title enough.

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