Some people were heavily criticised due to their comments regarding national shuttler Lee Zii Jia (李梓嘉)’s performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Thankfully, the overwhelming love and support the Bronze medallist received outweighed the negativity. Unfortunately for YB Hannah Yeoh, although she has shown support for the Malaysian athletes at the Olympics, many were not happy with one of her recent posts.
The Youth and Sports Minister has been in hot waters after posting with Thai badminton player Kunlavut Vitidsarn (กุลวุฒิ วิทิตศานต์), who beat our reigning athlete Lee Zii Jia (李梓嘉) during the semi-finals. She captioned the photo, “Congratulations @kunlavut.v for winning silver in Paris 2024. I enjoy his style of badminton so much. So calm and collected. He has a new fan in me!”
Because of this, Malaysians found fault with her actions, claiming she was “tone deaf” and not doing her job at the international multi-sport event. One user expressed that the politician was sent to the Olympics to provide support to our team and not “fangirl” over the other players.
However, YB Hannah Yeoh has since clapped back at the hate she’s receiving via Instagram Stories, as shown in the screenshots below. The public figure handled the situation in the best way possible, by having each of her points backed up by the Olympic values.
In her three-point post, the YB expressed the basic points of respect and friendship. Followed by celebrating the winners, adding that “Sportsmanship is about accepting loss when all is fair and being able to acknowledge your rivals in a respectful manner,” emphasising the importance of being unbiased when representing our country, especially during the loss of our players. Adhering to the Olympic values is crucial in these moments.
For her last point, Hannah Yeoh shared that she is not just a Sports Minister but a Youth Minister as well and that she sets the tone for the youths of Malaysia. With that comes her celebrating the victory of the winners by uplifting each other and not tearing down any of the other athletes.
The public figure also included a picture of her congratulating the Thai badminton coaches. She captioned the picture further stressing the importance of lifting each team up, especially our fellow ASEAN neighbours. We salute our YB for her representation of Malaysia to other countries, and for being unbiased and celebrating the wins while accepting the losses.
Source: Instagram
Jade Mary contributed to this article.
