Malaysia was putting all hope on World Number #2 and the only Malaysian in the current top 10 in the Badminton World Federation Ranking, Lee Chong Wei<\/a> to bring gold home.<\/p>\n It’s the first time Malaysia’s reached the badminton finals in the Olympics since the sport was introduced in 1992. Lee Chong Wei is coached by Misbun Sidek<\/a>, the eldest of five Malaysian badminton-playing Sidek brothers.<\/p>\n His opponent? World #1 Lin Dan<\/a> from China, whom he has beaten twice before at other meets. The possibility of gold was all the more tangible. But Lee Chong Wei lost 12-21, 8-21.<\/p>\n The similarities between both nations: first time in the finals, both knocked out confidently by China.<\/p>\n But that’s where the similarities end.<\/p>\n The team and coach of Singapore are made up of China imports who are now Singaporeans. The player and coach of Malaysia are born Malaysians.<\/p>\n My father mentioned last night that Lee Chong Wei might have gone a little further, had he a China coach.<\/p>\n And that started me wondering where the next generation of ping pong players and coaches in Singapore are going to come from.<\/p>\n A random Google brought up this blog<\/a> entry:<\/p>\n It’s great that Singapore can groom talent they’ve uprooted from their home country. But can Singapore groom Singapore-born Singaporeans in the sport? To make one sport, any sport, a national sport that is followed fervently by every single Singaporean. This is an important question to ensure longevity and improvement in any sport.<\/p>\n If that sport is to be ping pong, then the question is, why aren’t there ping pong tables under every single HDB block? Of course there are plenty of badminton courts and basketball courts around, but that hasn’t produced any significant national shuttler, or basketball team. And having table tennis table everywhere doesn’t mean any one will actually use it.<\/p>\n Indeed, if Singaporeans love ping pong, they’d be batting it out anywhere. Even using the stone Chinese Chess tables under our flats. Or playing on a mahjong table or rectangular dining table. But why is it we have the facilities to play in sports that we’re not good at, at neighbourhood playgrounds but we don’t have the same in a sport that we seem to be pushing a lot?<\/p>\n To have a national sport shouldn’t be expressed. Every child that is born should instinctively want to participate in it, playing with toy bats, moving on to playing with parents, friends, school mates etc. On every corner, people at any age, should be playing it. Parents would want their kids to be playing it.<\/p>\n I once met a doctor from Brazil. When we found out that his sons were doctors, we congratulated him on having a complete family of doctors. But he said, “I wish they were football players instead, but they weren’t good at sports.”<\/p>\n Will any Singaporean parent say this?<\/p>\n Singapore’s burning from the euphoria of the silver medal. We need to capitalize on the current popularity of ping pong and get more people involved in the sport. If not, again we will fail.<\/p>\n In four years time, will Li Jia Wei, Feng Tian Wei and Wang Yue Gu, four years older, still be struggling to keep their silver position in the team ping pong event? China would have bred younger, better players by then. Malaysia is already training teenagers who’ll hopefully, take badminton further. Does Singapore have its stock ready to replace our team?<\/p>\n If it doesn’t now have them waiting in the wings, then it looks like we’ll be importing another batch of players from China.<\/p>\n Besides convincing Singaporeans to have more babies to replace themselves, we also have to get the current crop of import players to get married and produce offspring that would make the next ping pong playing team. I believe this was the excitement of the relationship between Li Jia Wei and Ronald Susilo<\/a>, an Indonesian import who represents Singapore in badminton – the possibility of sporting genius born in Singapore. But we know that’s now over<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then and only then can we begin to dream to be good at some sport. Where on every corner we can watch children play the sport that fills their dreams and find new talent within Singapore.<\/p>\n As a former Malaysian, I too grew up playing badminton and not ping pong. First in my house, in front of the TV watching badminton matches, then outside my house, even in Singapore Community Centres. I can sing the Singapore anthem better than I can the Malaysian one. I know the Singapore pledge but don’t even remember uttering the Malaysian one. Still, I found myself being more emotionally involved in the badminton final, than in the game with essentially China Chinese playing each other.<\/p>\n At the end of the day, Singapore-born still counts. As a nation that has built her wealth on entrepot trade, surely we must know that imports can always be exported. But even if a Singapore-born Singaporean wanders, there’s still a possibility, he will return home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday, I watched two matches in two fields of sport, involving two countries who made it to the finals of that sport for the very first time. I’m talking about Singapore in the team ping pong finals and Malaysia in the men’s singles badminton finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[240,238,89,208,241,43,239],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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). Growing up playing the game, I have learnt many things and had so many wonderful experiences (I grew up playing with some famous players you might know: Chan Chong Ming, Wong Mei Choo, Woon Sze Mei, Ong Soon Hock, Gnana Easwaran, Ho Sze Ken and many more).<\/div>\n