59/60... So, do we dream on, or do something about it?

Fauzan Ahmad Lutfi arrived in Varese on Saturday, only to find his aero-bar had gone missing. Well, it was a clip-on aero-bar, which was to a fixed onto his road bike for the individual time trial.

Not that he didn't have a time trial bike. He couldn't bring it as the duo for the Under-23 World Championships were travelling on a tight budget, as their trip had been funded out of Datuk Astaman Abdul Aziz's own pocket, not the NSC's taxpayers funds. So, they had to save money on excess baggage, leaving Fauzan with the only option of bringing just enough to make do.

Questions had been asked by silly people with silly minds about the validity of sending a squad to the World Championships when we have little chance of producing results. Now, those people should feel somewhat appeased by the fact that their predictions have come true. Fauzan finished 59th out of 60 finishers in the 33.5km individual time trial on Tuesday.

I think many people had been interested in the World Championships and were watching it live on Eurosport, judging from about 45 sms messages I got, mostly telling me: "Mana Fauzan? Batang hidung pun tak nampak." (Where is Fauzan? Didn't even have a glimpse of him.)

Some others said, "Of course lah, this is the World Championships, not Selangor Menteri Besar Cup." Well, of course, it is the World Championships.

Now, the question is, do we celebrate the fact that as expected our rider failed, or do we look at this more seriously? We've had enough of riders claiming pride from winning local races, races contested only by us. Some breakthroughs have been made. Our road boys are beginning to make waves on the international scene in the UCI Asia Tour races. Look at Anuar Manan and the Le Tua team. They fear nothing and always aim higher.

Look at Ng Yong Li, Loh Sea Keong and Firdaus Daud. They were brave enough to grab destiny by its horns and make their own moves to establish careers abroad. They've succeeded with what little support they had, when some people back home were eager to state that these riders had little hope of succeeding and weren't good enough to cut it.

We Malaysians always put down each other. And many of us often get sucked down that same road. Of course it is difficult. Ask Yong Li what pains he had to go through in his formative years in Spain and Portugal, then France. Ask Sea Keong how much his parents had to suffer to get him through and on the road to chasing down his dream, same goes for Firdaus.

It is a mammoth task, so fearsome that many are even afraid to get started. If that is the case, then why even bother having road cycling programmes in the country. Just focus on the five or six track riders at the Melbourne base.

But this is not the end. People are starting to realise that programmes under and run solely by the NSC and MNCF are usually doomed for failure, unless you have an angle like John Beasley falling out of the sky and onto your laps to save the track sprints programme. All the NSC have to do then, is fund it.

For me, as I've told MNCF deputy president Datuk Naim Mohamad in a pow-wow between him and the "Terrible Two" of Malaysian cycling, Berita Harian's Zairee Zahir and myself, over supper on Saturday night, we should look at options.

The national team at World Championships for road or track, should be made up of the best riders who qualified through rankings, not a 100% monopoly by the NSC programme, because history has it that this is too risky for the safety of the future of Malaysian cycling.

The doors should be open for private programmes to be recognised. Trade teams can be registered both for road and track events, and points gathered for nations rankings towards qualification for the big two meets. If a privately run programme can field another 12 riders at World Cup events to complement the national team's entries, why not? At the end of the day, points and returns are for the country.

I guess private companies would also be more interested if they see an opportunity to fund riders all the way to World Championships. That's wishful thinking for the moment, but I do think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

So, for the road squad, I think since there are three establishments capable of racing on the international stage - Le Tua, MCF and the national team - there should be a programme established from now on.

What better target annually than the World Championships? Of course, Le Tour de Langkawi is there, so is Jelajah Malaysia. But those are in the early part of the season, while World Championships are usually in September or October. If the track squad can be set World Championships targets, why not the road squad. We've already qualified for three successive Under-23 World Championships, and we can use the UCI Asia Tour tickets to qualify for the elite category Worlds. That is a start, before we look at winning. But why do we fear even starting? Because we have weak people deciding our fate.

Come on, look at the startlist for the Elite Road World Championships road race. Japan have qualified Yukiya Arashiro, Kazuo Inoue and Hidenori Nodera.. On Yong Li's day, on any given mountain, Arashiro wouldn't even be fit to share his powerbar! Well, okay, this past season Yong Li was busy being Arashiro's Meitan-Hompo team domestique in France. So he didn't have time to look at qualifying for the World Championships. Isn't it MNCF's job to look into how he can qualify and lead him to it?

What about the over 200 other road riders in the country? Do they have a future? Can they have dreams of even rubbing shoulders with those at the top someday? Not at the moment. Because according to most in MNCF and NSC, they are never ready, they are never prepared and they are never good enough. Not even if they've earned the right through qualification!!

It always "takes time", "you can't expect instant results"... etc... Well, I started covering cycling almost nine years ago. I'm still waiting for them to overcome the long wait.