UNITED KINGDOM – Psychopaths and elite sportspeople share certain characteristics including pushing life to the limit, Britain’s most decorated female Olympic athlete Katherine Grainger told AFP.

The 40-year-old Scotswoman – who defied the sceptics to take silver in the women’s double sculls in Rio to medal for the fifth successive Games – came to this conclusion when she wrote her dissertation on psychopaths for a Masters in medical law and ethics, to add to her degree in law and another in homicide.

Grainger, who tumultuously won gold in the London Games and then took two years out before returning to the sport, emphasised the similarities only went so far.

“My masters was in psychopaths and I try not to link it directly to rowing and my team-mates,” she told AFP after arriving back from Rio with many of her team-mates who had also contributed to the record 67 medals.

“It is not a direct comparison in any way. But it is quite an extreme part of human behaviour and the mental side of people and actions and thoughts and deeds, to a certain extent sport is like that.

“People who are very passionate, very driven at what they do and take it right to the limit of human performance.

“It is always interesting seeing human beings experiencing life at the limit, whatever that limit is.” Grainger, who also won silver in Sydney (2000), Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008), said despite her academic qualifications in legal matters she wasn’t sure what career she would choose.

“I’m lucky there are a lot of doors I can open and choose what to do next,” said Grainger.

“The hard thing is knowing which direction to take next.

“I’ve got loads of interests and lots of things that excite me about the future.” Grainger, who at one point looked as if she wouldn’t make the Games as she and sculls partner Victoria Thornley struggled for form, said the last 20 years had been extraordinary but it was time to move on.

“I know I’ll never replace this and I wouldn’t try to replace this as its been an exceptional part of my life,” she said.

“I wouldn’t change any of it but at the same time I’ve got the next part of my life and I really want to be excited about that,” she added.

Now, however, the immediate future belongs with her family, to whom she acknowledges she owes a huge debt.

“They miss out on seeing you,” she said.

“There are so many weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and christenings you just don’t get to go to. However, my family have been wonderful because they’ve accepted it over the past 20 years.

“Just like any parent they want their child to be happy, whether successful or not. It is very, very hard for a parent or a loved one watching an athlete go through the emotional highs and lows and then enter the intense pressure of delivering when the event comes up every four years.

“I know how hard it has been for my mum and dad, they’ve been incredible, always very supportive of me coming back and doing it again.

“But I think they need a break from it now.” Grainger is especially looking forward to seeing her two-year-old nephew, who screamed her home watching her on television.

“Yeah I got photos through from my sister and he knew it was me on the TV,” said Grainger.

“I don’t think he could work out what I was doing on the TV, he doesn’t speak masses but he knows my name and shouts at the TV with the rest of the family.

“He is one of the first people I want to go back and see as I haven’t spent a lot of time with him in the past two years. My nephew will not know what the medal is for and he doesn’t know what the five rings are but that is quite refreshing.” From a professional point of view Grainger says as she looks back there is no resemblance between Team GB and the one she first competed for in Sydney.

“The whole ethos surrounding Team GB has changed,” she said.

“There is much more expectation of success.

“When I won my first medal in Sydney it was the first women’s rowing medal of any colour in the Olympic Games.

“There was huge surprise, but we didn’t know if it would change things or not.

“Now it is kind of expected to deliver medals across almost all sports categories.

“That is such a different mindset to when I started. Back then it was have a go and lets see if we can make a bit of history.

“Now it is all this responsibility, we have to deliver as this is what we do. It is breeding success.”

Rio Olympics 2016 Closing Ceremony

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Reuters, AFP, The Straits Times

PETALING JAYA – Age is just a number for Olympic bronze medallist track cyclist Azizulhasni Awang.

With Britain’s Chris Hoy riding to the keirin gold at age 36 in London four years ago, it is a good reminder for the Malaysian that another bid in Tokyo 2020 is not out of reach.

“I intend to go for my fourth Olympics outing in Tokyo.

“In my first Olympics in 2008, I finished 10th. In London four years ago, I made the final and ended up sixth.

“Now, I’ve got the bronze.

“I am improving and I will try for the middle spot in the podium in Tokyo,” said Azizul, who added his focus next year will be on completing his university studies.

The 28-year-old deferred his final year of sports science studies at Victoria University in Melbourne for his Olympic exploits.

Azizul will be 32 by the time Tokyo 2020 comes but he is confident of maintaining his competitive edge.

“I don’t see any sign of me getting slower or weaker.

“In fact, I get better and stronger each year,” he added.

Azizul became the country’s first Olympic medallist in track cycling when he romped to the bronze in the keirin final behind Dutchman Matthijs Buchli and Britain’s Jason Kenny in Rio last week.

Highlights from Olympics 2016

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AFP, Reuters, The Straits Times

After two weeks of intense competitions among the world’s finest athletes, the Rio Games have ended.

Rio Olympics 2016 Closing Ceremony

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Reuters, AFP, The Straits Times

New records were set and new heroes were born, among them Singapore’s young swimmer Joseph Schooling, who staged one of the greatest upsets of the Olympics.

As defined by Daniel Goffenberg of CBC Sports, for a great upset to happen, “you need an overwhelming favourite, a gutsy underdog and a stage big enough for the outcome to matter.”

Schooling’s victory over Michael Phelps fit the bill perfectly. He was the underdog from a tiny country that had never won an Olympic gold while Phelps was the mightiest, most decorated Olympian in history with 23 gold medals.

Not only that, Schooling set an impressive new record of 50.39sec for the 100m butterfly event.

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The Straits Times, Reuters, AFP

When news of Singapore’s first gold medal broke, it quickly overtook other stories emanating from Rio, eclipsing its ASEAN neighbours’ own Olympic gold successes: Vietnam’s shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh in the 10m air pistol and Thailand’s weightlifters Sopita Tanasan and Sukanya Srisurat in their individual weight classes.

It certainly overtook Malaysian diving duo Pandelela Rinong and Cheong Jun Hoong’s silver in the women’s synchronised 10m platform diving.

All are no small feats, but there is a total of 28 sports in the Games, not counting those with multiple disciplines, and the most popular ones for a global audience are gymnastics, track and field and swimming, according to topendsports.com.

Among Asian nations competing in the Games, China and Japan have been traditionally the strong contenders in gymnastics and swimming.

For most other Asian competitors, the sports they excel in tend to be the ones with less mass appeal like archery, shooting, judo, badminton and, for some strange reason, women’s weightlifting.

Apart from the Thais, Taiwanese, Filipina and Indonesian female weightlifters have also won medals for their countries.

Highlights from Olympics 2016

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AFP, Reuters, The Straits Times

In the glamorous track-and-field events, however, there does not seem to be any Asian athlete who can challenge the likes of Usain Bolt.

China remains the sporting powerhouse of Asia, sending its largest delegation of 416 athletes to Rio.

But this outing has been a disappointment for the Chinese. Their medal haul, although ranked third after the United States and Britain, is far below what they got at the 2012 London Games.

Meanwhile, the other Asian powerhouse, India, with the second-largest population in the world, has never done well at the Olympics which has been the subject of intense debate among Indian and foreign sports pundits.

Sadly, its fortunes did not change, despite sending its biggest-ever contingent of 118 sportsmen and women.

Its one silver and one bronze fall very short of the hoped-for 10 to 14 medals, as reported by The Statesman newspaper.

CAN MONEY BUY MEDALS?

Winning an Olympic gold medal is the Holy Grail of sports.

The pomp that surrounds the Games gives the gold medallists unparalleled honour and prestige.

And the nations they represent go into collective convulsions of ecstasy and nationalistic joy, which make their governments equally happy and proud.

That is why many governments pour millions into sports programmes to nurture and train promising talents and offer great financial rewards to successful Olympians.

Schooling will get $1 million for his gold medal.

Vietnam’s Hoang reportedly will receive US$100,000 (S$134,760), a figure, according to Agence France-Presse, that is nearly 50 times greater than the country’s average national income of around US$2,100.

How much Olympic athletes get for their gold medals

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Straits Times Graphics

Several Western countries have the same financial bait – including the United States, France, Russia and Germany – but at a lower rate.

Does it work?

The Technology Policy Institute looked for a correlation and was mindful of variables like country size and income, “since those are surely the biggest predictor of how many medals a country will win”.

“More populous countries are more likely to have that rare human who is physically built and mentally able to become an Olympic athlete, while richer countries are more likely to be able to invest in training those people”.

The researchers found no correlation between monetary payments and medals and said it was not surprising in some countries.

In the US, for example, a US$25,000 cash award would be dwarfed by million-dollar endorsements the sportsperson could get.

The researchers also set out to see if the results are different for countries with lower opportunities for endorsements.

Their conclusion: “Overall the evidence suggests that these payments don’t increase the medal count” either.

Rather, countries that do well are those with a longstanding sporting culture that values and nurtures their athletes long before they qualify for the Olympics.

That is evident in Western societies where sportsmen, even at the college level, are feted and idolised. In Asia, however, the emphasis is more on book-learning and earning prestigious degrees.

That attitude, however, is surely changing as more Asian sportsmen and women go professional and are able to make a good living.

For now, it is still the Western countries that dominate the Olympic medal tally table.

But it is only a matter of time before more Asian nations, once no-hopers at the Games, rise up the charts.

It has already started.

The Rio Games will go down in history as a watershed for ASEAN, with two member states – Singapore and Vietnam – winning their first gold medals.

For Malaysia, even though this was its most successful Olympic outing with three silver and one bronze, the gold medal remained painfully elusive.

So it did not happen for its athletes at Rio but it can in Tokyo in 2020. After all, the Little Red Dot has shown the wildest dream can be a reality.