Press Freedom Day and marijuana

It was a kind of 'interested' feeling that ran through me as I rushed from an interview back to the office today, to catch the final hour of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) forum on Press Freedom in commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day.
What interested me most was the presence of the celebrity blogger Mr. Ahirudin Attan or Rocky, a familiar face, and R. Nadeswaran or Citizen Nades of The Sun, who were among five speakers. The PM's son-in-law Mr. Khairy Jamaluddin had officiated the event earlier. According to rockybru.blogspot.com Khairy had surprised by backing the call for Press freedom in opening the forum.

Moderating it was University of Malaya Media Studies Head of Department Prof Dr Azizah Hamzah, with Hanafiah Man of Agenda Daily and YB Tien Chua completing the line-up.

I entered the quarter-full theathrette at Balai Berita just as the Q&A session had began, and sure enough my guess was almost right. Except that everything about Press Freedom centred around what happened before, during and after the March 8 general elections.

To a question, or rather a remark, by Star senior writer Shahanaz Habeeb, about the boycott of the mainstream media as called for by a number of blogs not working, Rocky completed his reply by stating the bloggers will be calling for journalists to march for their freedom, failing which the bloggers will march calling for the journalists to do so.

This came on the back of a somewhat silently unanimous agreement on the call for mainstream media to be free of political ownership. Bla Bla Bla...

But seriously, if the journalists themselves were interested in this fight, the presence in the theathrette today would have been more than the 20-odd persons, which included some university students.

Personally, my simple mind kind of (forgive me) draws similarities in this whole issue of Press freedom and freedom of speech in Malaysia in general, to let's say the taboo subject of the legalisation of marijuana.

Yup, people just didn't talk about it (freedom of speech) seriously enough prior to this. They just talked (or wrote) until they realised they weren't allowed to talk (or write) about everything and anything. Then it led to an age of protest like in America during the Vietnam War. When they didn't agree with their Government, the youth resorted to smoking pot and screwing each other freely. Some got caught, some didn't.

The same here, when people suddenly don't agree with the Government, and they realise that their speech (or writing) may be hindered (politically or lawfully), they turn to blogging and they use blogs to screw each other too. But they also screw the Press, and the Press try to screw them back. Some did manage to get themselves caught as well, while others weren't caught but sued, cautioned or hauled in for questioning.

Then the West graduated to an age of liberal understanding in the nineties where the minds were open enough to call for, fight for and complete the legalisation of (or so called liberalisation of laws governing) marijuana, even if only for therapeutic use. The battle took a decade in Holland, much more than that in California.

In Malaysia, the time between the realisation that the new media were playing a role in politics, the opening up of minds to the realisation, understanding and control of this newfound ticket (or shortcut) to the freedom of speech, has all been crammed into a significant period of two months, three days and counting.

Interestingly, it is the freedom of speech that allowed people, just like us, to address something initially thought as so bad, so dirty, so sinful and so immoral as marijuana. And turned it into something acceptable, something controllable, something that probably even MPs could smoke at tea breaks. The users co-exist with those who despise them in one happy country.

Now, with senior politicians and newspaper editors also counting themselves as bloggers, the new media has found its way along the same path in Malaysia hasn't it?

WADA Heck!!

This is the logo of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The biggest failure in the war against doping in sport, after the International Cycling Union (UCI). And I want to find out and tell you why.

This is the website of WADA: http://www.wada-ama.org/en/index.ch2

Go in there and get a hang of it. Read all you can from that impressive array of thesis that they put before you. We'll look into it together as the days and weeks progress. The first of the Grand Tours of cycling, the Giro d'Italia, starts shortly on Saturday, May 10. And so will the drug-bust season...

And then the Giro comes along...

Pro cycling at its highest level, as it has been in the past year, was something many just want to forget.

From the Fuentes scandal in 2006, Operacion Puerto as it happened, to the folding up of teams like Discovery Channel, Wiesenhoff, T-Mobile...etc. Then, the admissions of celebrated champions like Bjarne Riis and Erik Zabel that they had doped. Of course, we'll never forget Michael Rasmussen being sacked by the Rabobank team while wearing the maillot jaune and gearing up towards victory in last year's Tour de France. That came after the disgrace of the Astana team pulling out after Alexandre Vinokourov and his long-time lieutenant Andrey Kashechkin tested positive for EPO. That resulted in a revamp of the entire Astana set-up.

Even before that Tour started, we'd lost 1997 winner Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso prior to that. At least Rasmussen was spared the honour of rising on the podium with the grand boucle before be thrown into shame like Floyd Landis was the year before. All that resulted in records showing Caisse d'Epargne's Oscar Perreiro as the 2006 Tour winner, and Alberto Contador kept the title in Spain for a second consecutive year. We can go on and on about doping over the past 12 months alone, let alone the past decade.

Cycling has not had it so bad, ever.

We try to turn a new leaf, forget about it all... Until the next drug bust comes along.

Directors of major races these days, like the Giro d'Italia's Angelo Zomegnan, starts off the build-up towards his race by announcing hopes of a drug-free, scandal free race. How much sadder can it get?

The 2008 Giro d'Italia starts on Saturday with a defending champion who's not entirely free of taint. Danilo di Luca's two brushes with doping allegations - first with the Italian Olympic Committee's (CONI) allegations of plasma injections following a 2007 stage and a three-month suspension he served for relations to the Oil for Drugs scandal. Still, starting with the LPR team after leaving Liquigas, Di Luca starts among the favourites in a team that includes 2006 Giro winner Paolo Savoldelli.

But the romantics, particularly those in Malaysia, will be gunning for a victory by Gilberto Simoni from the Gianni Savio team Serramenti PVC Diquigi0vanni-Androni Gioccatoli, the team with the longest name in cycling. The two-time Giro winner heads to Italy with a team that includes Le Tour de Langkawi 2008 winner Ruslan Ivanov along with Colombian climber Jose Serpa, veteran Gabriele Missaglia and young Venezuelan Carlos Jose Ochoa, whom I think might be in the running for the young riders' jersey.

If there was any rider who'd have more reason to win this Giro, it would be Alberto Contador and his Astana team who earned a last-minute call-up by organisers RCS, after initially being rejected from all three grand tours. And watch out for this Astana team - they're determined to win every race they enter and have even stated an intention of winning every single-stage of the Dauphine Libere, the traditional warm-up to the Tour de France, although the ASO still remain adamant on leaving the team of the defending Tour de France champion, out of their race. Contador has said in his press release that he's prepared this season just like he'll be racing in the big event.

Contador will have a strong team with American Levi Leipheimer and German Andreas Kloden as his main lieutenants. I'd think the main battle for the overall will be between these three teams - LPR, Serramenti Diquigiovanni and Astana.

Other contenders will rise from this following group:

Saunier Duval's Ricardo Ricco, nicknamed the Cobra

Don't be surprised if any one of these three suddenly come into the picture - Euskaltel-Euskadi's Inigo Landaluze, Liquigas' Franco Pelizotti or Caisse d'Epargne's Jose Rujano.

Of course, an exciting team to watch, I believe, will be the Tinkoff Credit Systems with Evgeni Petrov, Pavel Brutt and Mikael Ignatiev in there....

For a more detailed build-up, look here: http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/giro08/?id=favourites

The demise of Super Aguri and one interesting read

Yesterday, May 6, 2008 saw the first demise of an F1 team since the popular British Arrows team closed shop forever in 2002.

But unlike Arrows, who spent two decades gracing the F1 grid, while famously introducing some interesting designs into the sport, including their brave attempt at running an independent in-house engine programme towards the end of the team's life, Super Aguri lasted just two and a half years.

And those two years were spent struggling to line up on the starting grid.The team ceased all F1 operations effective yesterday and owner Aguri Suzuki was quoted by http://www.formula1.com/, explaining, among others the relation of a breach of contract by sponsors, oil and gas company SS United, to the reasons why the team had run into financial difficulties since last year.

That is despite being backed, and infamously branded by critics as the Honda b-team.How contrasting fortunes can be in F1.

The Super Aguri demise comes days after I got my hands on the June, 2008 inaugural
edition of the Sports Pro magazine, a new monthly sports financial magazine published in the UK.

Besides an insight into the success of Nike founder Phil Knight, which was the cover story on the man who is unrivalled as the richest man in sport, having amassed a fortune of over USD$10 billion, there is a special report on finances in F1.

Interestingly, the report carries a rather detailed breakdown into the 2008 budgets of all 11 F1 teams, concluding that the depreciation of 1.4 percent in the total budgets of teams alone, from USD$3.139 billion in 2007 to just USD$3.096 billion this year, as projecting F1 into "as uncertain a state as it has ever been".
That's a drop of USD$46 million. Honda, Super Aguri's so-called big brother, has replaced McLaren as the team with the biggest budget, no thanks to the spygate scandal that resulted in the latter being fined USD$100 million. Honda's total budget, for your information is a whalloping USD$422.35 million! That's 13.64% of the overall budget of teams put together. Interestingly too, the magazine's report seemed to reflect on Super Aguri's demise as impending, rather than speculation and described the team's budget for the year (well below USD$100 million) as negligible.

Also, if you'd have thought world champions Ferrari or McLaren would be second and third with Honda occupying the top budget ranking, you'd have been so wrong.

BMW-Sauber's USD$412 million, of which USD$356 million is in cold, hard cash, is second highest, thanks also to national oil company Petronas' ranking as the highest paying non-title sponsor or team owner in the sport with a USD$42 million contribution.
BMW-Sauber's budget is 97.55% of Honda's, with BMW being the biggest contributor with USD$220 million. Even that, only ranks the team owner as the fourth biggest of the 192 sponsors associated with teams in the sport, after Honda (USD$340m), Toyota Motor Corp. (USD$315m) and Red Bull (USD$279m).
Petronas' USD$42 million makes them the 11th biggest sponsor in the sport.


Air Asia's USD$2.75 million deal with the Williams team ranks them joint-60th with sports attire company Fila, who support Honda, and global courier service FedEx, who have their logo on the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Heiki Kovalainen.

My poor favourite team Renault has only the sixth biggest budget in F1 with a measley USD$189.5 million, according to the Sports Pro special report. Super Aguri was not even featured individually in the team-by-team budget analysis.

A significant change F1 had, if I read the report right, was the entrance of India's colourful billionaire Vijay Mallya as team owner. His USD$46 million, channeled via three of his companies - Kingfisher (USD$40m), The Dalmore (USD$3m) and Royal Challenge (USD$3m) saved the former Spyker team from collapse and eventually developed into an Indian national project, aptly renamed the Force India F1 Team.

A similar change, or rather one that mirrors the BMW takeover at Sauber and Honda's buying out of David Richards' BAR team several years ago, is said to be in the pipeline, and McLaren is at the centre of it with Mercedes looking to take over Ron Dennis' 15% stake and the equal amount held by Saudi tycoon Mansour Ojjeh.

The outlook for F1, according to the report, seems bleak as the sport faces an impending financial crisis brought about by an overall mixture of sponsorship downturn and a fluctuating and unstable US dollar.

Which probably substantiates further the sport's powerbrokers' - the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone's - intentions of introducing budget caps, which initally were thought as mere efforts to level the playing field. But those familiar with the Max and Bernie combination, would tend to believe that the sport's future isn't too much in danger. Not as much as that of small-budget teams like Toro Rosso and Mallya's Force India, as Aguri Suzuki may attest to. I believe that soon even the likes of Williams will come under pressure.

In case nobody realised, F1 is already well and truly THE big boys' game. It isn't anymore a game for teams run mainly on passion and desire. It is no longer a game for those without the backing of manufacturers, or teams that aren't owned by manufacturers. Even McLaren is going down, so is Williams. It is inevitable. It isn't good and neither is it bad. It's just happening.


I'd like to note down more on this... soon..


Note - Current exchange rate: USD$1 = RM3.15

Looking back at an empty season from Brands Hatch

This (left) was a picture I just spontaneously took as I stumbled upon A1 Team Malaysia drivers Fairuz Fauzy (left) and Aaron Lim sharing an intimate moment together at the back of the team tent during the weekend of the final round of the series in Brands Hatch recently.

Wonder what they were whispering to each other. It had been and turned out to be a really bad season for the team.After finishing fifth in 2006 and sixth last year, this year we were 15th in the championship.
Later, as Fairuz sat in the car in the pit, preparing for the practice session prior to qualifying on Saturday, guess what was on the screen in the pits? Man Utd v West Ham! Of course the Great Devils whacked the Hammers 4-2. And now we know how racing drivers take their minds off shambolic seasons.















But later, when the screen was placed right in front of Fairuz's face, you could just sense that it was serious business.
















Seeing that things weren't going so well for A1 Team Malaysia, I crept over to the Team Brazil pits for some time and there was Emerson Fittipaldi (left), the F1 World champion in 1972 and 1974. He's great in more ways than one. He was world champion in the year I was born.

Right now, Emerson is busy polishing the talents of a 16-year old Brazilian teenage sensation Felipe Guimaraes... You should remember that name. This kid is going to drive the A1 Team Brazil car next season... Or so Emerson says...






This next little girl, Rahel Frey, you people better remember. At 19, she's already done rookie sessions for A1 Team Switzerland (and clocked fastest times), finished on the podium in Formula Renault Euroseries and is currently competing in the German F3 Championship. This little girl from Solothurn in Switzerland, everybody, is going to be the first woman F1 driver.
Well, I think highly of Rahel and she looks like a real strong character. Always meaning business. No wonder Malaysian national oil company Petronas is backing her career in F3, much to the dismay of a host of promising drivers from their own country.





It is also interesting that some girls surprise their parents by choosing racing as a career path, while others, more famously, choose just to remain pretty. Like some of those I caught with my little white Nikon Coolpix L2 in Brands Hatch.



The major distractions at Brands Hatch though, were these following beauties. The ones I'd marry and live happily ever after with....




But you know, one of the things I realised over the weekend was that Fairuz, having spent the last decade establishing his racing career in Britain, has a really good fanbase over in Europe, more than he has in Malaysia. All weekend, people were stopping him asking for autographs. Most came with pictures of him in GP2 or the Formula Renault 3.5 World Series.

This grid girl named Tami came looking for Fairuz after the race, seeking autographs on two A1 Team Malaysia posters. "One's for me, the other is for my sort of nephew," she said. Sorry Tami, Fairuz is happily married, with a kid who, most famously, appears in the first ever photograph snapped of him, dressed in a racing suit!!

Like father like son, you may say. And that precedent was set by Tuan Haji Mohd Fauzy Abdul Hamid, Fairuz's motorsport mad father. I shared a few moments in Brands Hatch with Tuan Haji. I must tell you that on many most enjoyable occasions, I've spent hours after Press conferences or interviews, just chatting with Haji Fauzy about racing. This old man can go on for hours talking about his favourite subject!
Here's me with one of Malaysian motorsport's most famous father-and-son combinations after the DNF in the feature race, that happened due to ignition failure just when Fairuz was looking good for a sixth place finish.
You know, as I've written in the New Straits Times long ago when people took my stories a little more seriously, I've always liked these old circuits. Just look at the way they're set up for fans. Try as Hermann Tilke may, he's only distancing the fans from the action. Circuits he designed like Sepang, Bahrain and Shanghai, if they are to be the way of the future, are simply too safe, too faraway, to big. Look at Brands Hatch and Suzuka, or the old defunct Shah Alam Circuit. They're all just comfortably friendly, with action right in your face, not a mile away from where you sit that even the sound feels distanced. Tilke should look at how racing should be for the fans.

In all, it was a nice weekend for the NST's almost forgotten sportswriter (right) and columnist. Yes, Fairuz's column, 'On the Grid with Fairuz Fauzy' appears in the NST sports pages every race day of the F1 World Championship calendar, as it has since the 2006 season.

Thanks to these two guys... A1 Team Malaysia CEO Jack Cunningham (right) and commercial director Owen Leed for making the great trip happen.