When Malaysians cheered Boonson and Shanti Pereira

There was something slightly strange about watching Malaysian athletics in Nagoya.

Some of the loudest Malaysian cheers belonged to two sprinters wearing Thai and Singaporean colours.

Puripol Boonson came tearing down the home straight and it was impossible not to watch. Shanti Pereira emerged from the bend in the rain and Malaysians could only marvel.

Perhaps that is what sport is supposed to do. Excellence has no passport.

But it also leaves Malaysian athletics with an uncomfortable question.

What happens when a country’s supporters begin looking across the border for something to believe in?

Boonson gave them plenty.

The 20-year-old Thai won the 100m in 9.90 seconds, a Games record, then produced an astonishing 19.88 in the 200m to complete the sprint double. His 200m time matched China’s Xie Zhenye’s Asian record.

His race had a particular drama. The start was not spectacular. Then he began to eat up the bend before powering into the straight, opening daylight between himself and the field.

Pereira provided a different kind of spectacle.

On a rain-swept track, the Singaporean defended her 200m title in 22.78 seconds. She did not have the fastest start, but built her race around the curve before producing the strongest finish. She became the first woman to win the Asian Games 200m twice.

These were not simply victories. They looked like performances built on purpose.

That is where the comparison with Malaysia becomes uncomfortable.

Malaysia sent 20 athletes to the athletics programme. Only Azeem Fahmi and Danish Iftikhar Roslee reached individual finals, in the 100m and 200m respectively.

Azeem’s race ended painfully when muscle cramps forced him to slow almost to a walk before he crossed in 14.65 seconds. Danish finished sixth in 20.89.

There were young athletes who gained experience and made progress. That should be acknowledged. But too many performances offered little evidence of where the next breakthrough might come from.

And this was not an isolated bad week.

The last two years have brought coaching disputes, questions over athlete development and competition, organisational controversies and a growing sense of drift.

There have been changes and new structures, but Nagoya should force a more prickly question: have those changes actually improved the system?

There are no quick fixes for an illness. But before treatment can begin, someone has to admit the patient is sick.

The worrying thing about Malaysian athletics is not simply that it has come home without a medal. It is whether there is enough urgency to suggest that the result has forced a reckoning.

If Malaysia Athletics thinks Nagoya was an aberration, it risks adding another problem to the list: self-delusion.

Athletics is brutally competitive. Malaysia is not simply competing against its Southeast Asian neighbours. Seventeen countries had won athletics medals in Nagoya, while Malaysia remained outside the medal table.

That should temper the argument, not weaken it.

The question is not why Malaysia did not beat China, Japan or India.

It is why neighbouring countries are producing athletes capable of making Asia sit up and watch.

Look at Boonson.

His development stretches back through school athletics and national structures, with coaching support that has continued to evolve as he has moved towards the senior level.

Look at Pereira.

Her progress has been built over years with coach Luis Cunha, who has worked on the smallest details of her sprinting, from mechanics to acceleration and the ability to squeeze more from an already accomplished athlete.

That is the comparison worth making.

Not whether Thailand or Singapore has discovered a secret formula. But whether Malaysia has built an environment in which talented athletes can keep getting better.

Danish, 19, offers a revealing case.

At last year’s SEA Games, he finished third in the 100m and 200m behind Boonson. He has since emerged as one of Malaysia’s most promising young sprinters, holding the national 200m record of 20.73 seconds.

That is progress, but Boonson was progressing too. What is Thailand doing to keep moving its young sprinter forward? That is a system question, not an indictment of Danish.

The same distinction must apply across the Malaysian team. Athletes are responsible for their training, discipline, recovery and performance.

They cannot build the national development system around them, recruit specialist coaches, create an international competition programme, resolve disputes between associations or determine how promising juniors are identified and moved into the senior ranks.

This is where Malaysia Athletics needs to be honest. Where is the pathway from junior to senior athletics? How many athletes who emerge at Sukma become international contenders?

How are coaches evaluated and what happens when an athlete stagnates? What level of sports-science support is available, and how much meaningful international competition do promising athletes receive?

Most importantly, who is accountable when the system does not deliver?

There are encouraging signs. Nine Sukma records were broken at the 2026 Games, suggesting Malaysia still has young athletes capable of progress.

But what happens to that progression once they move from promising youngster to senior international athlete?

Malaysia Athletics should consider an independent examination of its high-performance system covering coaching, talent identification, junior development, state associations, competition planning, sports science, athlete welfare, selection and funding.

This should not become a hunt for convenient scapegoats. It should begin with a more basic question: what did Malaysia Athletics promise, and what did it actually deliver?

The answer matters because Kuala Lumpur hosts the SEA Games next year.

Home advantage can produce medals. It cannot manufacture a high-performance system.

A successful SEA Games could even make the problem harder to see. Malaysia might win medals on home soil and declare that the worst is over.

But the real test will be whether the athletes who emerge in Kuala Lumpur have a pathway beyond the Games.

That is what Boonson and Pereira represent — continuity.

Pereira’s success has been built around an athlete and coach who have worked together for years. Boonson’s performances show what can happen when youthful talent continues to move forward instead of merely being celebrated for its potential. Malaysia needs that progression.

Perhaps that explains why Malaysians found themselves cheering for Boonson and Pereira.

Fans do not owe a flag their admiration. They give it to excellence when they see it.

Boonson made the track feel fast. Pereira made it feel dramatic. They gave spectators something to believe in.

Malaysian athletics needs to give Malaysians that feeling again.

Not through slogans. Not through another restructuring exercise. Not by promising that the next Games will be different.

But by building athletes who can walk onto an Asian track and look as though they belong there.

There is less than a year before the SEA Games come to Kuala Lumpur.

That is not enough time to repair everything. It is enough time to decide whether Nagoya was a warning or merely another result.

The first step is not winning a medal — it is admitting there is a problem.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.