Hearty congrats to our Singapore Table Tennis women team and the officials for bringing us our second Olympic medal in the last 50 years.
The girls had an almost impossible task of beating the mighty Chinese team and truth to be said, even if they had been at 150% of their performance, they would hardly have done any better than what they have done today.
Results:
Wang Nan (CH) bt Feng Tianwei (SIN) 9-11, 11-3, 11-8, 11-6
Zhang Yining (CH) bt Li Jiawei (SIN) 9-11, 11-3, 11-4, 11-7
Guo Yue/Zhang Yining (CH) bt Wang Yuegu/Li Jiawei (SIN) 11-8, 11-5, 11-6.
While watching the first two games, Singapore manage to snatch a set each from the Chinese before being ass-smacked. At that point, I think the Chinese let one set to slide just so that the Final won’t end too soon or they have to bring out the mascot like they did in their semi-final against Hong Kong.
Anyway, we lost to a better team and maybe its just one mountain too high for us to climb.
Sad to say, as soon as the medals are handed out, there are already people in the country that is bemoaning again that the three players are from China and some already labelled the Finals as China A vs China B. For example here where the author laments some old issues about not giving locals a chance blah blah blah.
I just have a simple question to ask these people. IF you are a parent of a young kid. Will you be willing to give your kid to some sports not knowing whether they can make it in the sport, take the pain and sacrifices of professional sports and give up a possible lucrative job as a doctor or a lawyer? Sporting careers are seldom long lasting. Will you be brave to put him on the path knowing his career as a professional sports person will only last 20-30 years?
Feng TianWei, Li JiaWei and Wang Yuegu’s parents definitely knew that and they did make the painful choice. Thankfully for them, even though they didn’t make it in China, Singapore fortunately spotted them and brought them in and make them our own.
I had hope that after so many years, Singaporeans will be open minded about us bringing foreign talents here. Its not just in sports. We have them in education, in business and in almost every part of this island, we are all migrants or descendants of migrants. Yes things have change, we have to bring them in and pay them good money to play for Singapore, but hey, you pay for the talents, you pay for the sacrifices.
There are many facades to this issue of foreign talent that I can’t and won’t possibly cover. All I want to say is this.
Thank you Feng Tian Wei, Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and the many other nameless faces behind the Singapore Team for bringing us this Olympic medal. Thank you.
Found this video interview of Li Jiawei and Feng Tian Wei on Baidu that traces their life from young to being in the Singapore team.
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Where did you get your blog layout from? I’d like to get one like it for my blog.
I see it as a good thing the sports council pursued them. If they stayed in China, who knows if they’ll even be in the Olympic team since they’re not #1 or 2. We’ve allowed them to hone their skills and career by playing on an international stage. And they returned the favor by bringing back a medal.
If we didn’t poach them, I’m quite certain in another alternative reality, they wouldn’t have played in the 2008 finals.
Well done ladies!