The steering committee tasked to chart the athletes’ preparation for the 2012 London Olympics held their first meeting recently.

The terms of reference for this committee are to take the lead in formulating a programme designed to raise the bar in London by winning more than just a silver medal.

Our mission will be considered a failure should our contingent come back with one silver, or worse still, empty-handed.

A silver and a bronze will be considered successful. A gold medal will be historic. So far badminton has been our only source of medals — two silvers from Cheah Soon Kit-Yap Kim Hock in 1996 and Lee Chong Wei in 2008 and two bronze medals from Razif-Jalani Sidek in 1992 and Rashid Sidek in 1996.

Other sports still have not reached the level that can help them win a medal. As expected, badminton, archery and cycling have been named as medal contenders for 2012.

Badminton remains well-poised to mount a serious challenge. Judging by the performance in Beijing, the archers and track cyclists have also been targeted for medals in London.

It is an encouraging development because we have more than one sport to provide a ray of hope in our quest for medals. Seventeen athletes have been named in the programme which will be more comprehensive than previous years.

We can expect the list of athletes and sports to keep on changing from now until 2012. A number of athletes will be chosen after the 2010 Asian and Commonwealth Games.

The medal winners of Olympic sports from the two multi-sports festivals will be selected into the final phase of the programme which will focus on helping them meet the Olympic qualifying standards. Some of the athletes will be dropped or are expected to pull out.

Setting up the committee at such an early stage is to illustrate the Sports Ministry’s commitment in making sure the London programme would be a success.

By convention, preparation for the Olympics usually begins only after the Asian Games, whereby suitable athletes would be identified for the Olympics held two years later.

A four-year cycle was not imposed because no other sport, besides badminton, deserved a serious and concentrated training programme geared for the Olympics. Normally the NSC would support the BA of Malaysia (BAM) in their Olympic programme while the rest would have to wait after the conclusion of the Asian Games.

Let us hope in future the number of sports that reach Olympic standard will increase to enable NSC to embark on a special Olympic programme.

One way to achieve this is to remove the mental block among officials, coaches and athletes who are enjoying the comfort zone of the Sea Games to instead strive for the higher and more challenging Asian, Commonwealth and Olympic Games.

The sad story of our football team continues. Actually the players and coaches are under tremendous pressure to deliver.

Unfortunately football now has become the butt of jokes for some people while some are optimistic that something positive will take place in the near future.

The Sports Minister will be meeting a delegation from FAM today to discuss possible solutions.

Let’s pray something substantial will come out from this meeting.