Revolutions come and go. Masters track lives on.  When last we checked, the Bangkok International Airport was a mess, and the 15th Asian Masters Athletics Championships had to be postponed. But yesterday, the five-day meet wrapped up in Thailand with no apparent bloodshed. Results are posted here for the meet, which news reports say attracted more than 1,800 athletes from 25 nations. “Thai politics is now back to normal and should be no cause of disruption or concern to visitors,” the results site reported on Jan. 5.  The 16th Asian Masters championships will be held in 2010, either in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, or Tokyo, Japan. The decision was to have been made Jan. 15 in Chiang Mai during the  general meeting of the Asian Masters Athletics Association. Haven’t heard the winner yet. But we know a loser: Christina Tay, the W40 CEO of the Singapore masters track organization.

Under the headline “SAA CEO resigns amid funding crisis,” we learn Thursday from ChannelNewsAsia.com:

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Athletic Association’s (SAA) funding crisis has claimed its first casualty: Chief executive officer Christina Tay.

Tay resigned from her position Thursday afternoon and will be serving two months of notice before leaving the association in March.

Speaking to TODAY after the SAA’s bi-monthly management committee meeting at the association’s office at the Singapore Sports School, president Loh Lin Kok said: “Christina tendered her resignation to me after our two-and-a-half-hour meeting this afternoon, and the management committee has accepted it.”

Just last week, Tay was taken to task by the athletics chief after it was reported that the national sports association (NSA) could lose their funding for Financial Year 2009 due to the late submission of their training and budget plans.

But the CEO took five days of annual leave this week – from Monday to today – to compete at the 15th Asia Masters Athletics Championships in Chiang Mai, despite the fact that the appeal to the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) had yet to be submitted.

Her actions angered Loh.

In an exclusive TODAY report Thursday, the athletics chief criticised Tay for her lack of professionalism.

According to Loh, Tay’s leave application had been approved on Dec 19, three weeks before the association’s problems came to light.

Tay returned to Singapore on Wednesday, four days earlier than expected, but the athletics chief said he expected more from his staff.

“With the bad publicity and the dramatic events that unfolded (over the funding problems), she should have known better,” he said.

“She had no business going to Chiang Mai and should have exercised her judgment and it just aggravated matters.

“She’s accepted the fact and is contrite over the whole matter, which is why she decided to resign. I can’t say sorry for her the second time in case of allegations of cronyism and nepotism.

“It’s the price she has to pay.”

Tay, 43, was previously a financial controller with a Swedish firm. The mother of two served as the SAA’s honorary treasurer from 2006 to 2007, before joining the SAA on Nov 1, 2007, as CEO.

According to Loh, the SAA will be searching for a new CEO in the next two months. The president plans to meet with SSC’s director of NSA management, Ng Eng Soon, to resolve SAA’s funding issues and is eager to move on from the incident.

“It’s been a very dramatic episode,” he said. “Let us leave this behind and move forward.

“We have another annual general meeting coming up, annual accounts, an NSA review to work on, as well as the budget appeal. The person who created the situation has resigned, and that is the substance of our appeal.”

So the North Americans, Aussies and Eurovets aren’t the only masters tracksters beset by political intrigue and budget wars.

Here’s Christina Tay (who used to run sprints and hurdles):

And here’s another story on the Tay Affair. What a hoot!