Beijing Olympics: Table Tennis

The women’s table tennis, both team and singles, has concluded with the Chinese players ranking tops.

I have always enjoyed watching Wang Nan and Zhang Yining play, especially when both partnered in matches or when both play against each other. Last night, both pit against each other in the Gold Medal playoff. Zhang Yining, World Number 1, clinched the gold medal after beating Wang Nan 4-1.

In my eyes, both are formidable players. It doesn’t matter who wins. It is always entertaining and exciting to watch their matches, with a good showing of their skills, their tactics, both attacks and defences.

On a personal side, I am more ‘attracted’ to Wang Nan’s persona. While Zhang Yining maintains a straight face throughout each match (only breaking into her sweet smile after she wins the match), Wang Nan’s expression seems to be more varied. You could see her frowns, fiery, disappointment, confidence and smiles in her matches. But then, that didn’t quite match my impression of her before this Olympics. When I first watched her play one or two Olympics ago, I thought she was full of fiery and that was pretty scary. Nevertheless I still enjoyed watching her. Well, this could well be her last Olympics and if this is really true, I am going to miss this adorable lady!

It is also the first time team competition is included in the Olympics, and Singapore has gotten itself a silver in the team table tennis. Kudos to the girls. I had not followed the prelims but I was thinking if it was because we did not play with China during the prelims or semis? In any case, the silver is ours, after our team’s hardwork and perseverance.

It was a bit disappointing that we didn’t manage to get another medal in the singles, but what could we do? It’s not everyday we can beat Zhang Yining or Wang Nan. But our players did play a good game and that’s equally important.

In fact, I was more disappointed with some of the comments I hear from home. Of course, there were comments about our players being foreign talents and the win cannot be considered a win by Singapore. I used to have the same sentiment, but on second thoughts, when can we then build up our own home-bred, home-grown, home-trained team?

Having these foreign talents could well help to promote the sport, and with the win, inspire and motivate locals to get interested and involved in the sports. Of course, there must be good support in terms of infrastructure, training, a career plan and most importantly, support from the society as a whole. It is easier said than done. With our society so focused on academics, mentality cannot be changed overnight and may take a long long time to achieve this goal, even if there are plans to develop sporting careers in the future. So why can’t foreign sporting talents be a starting point to start us off?

Moreover, many countries are also beginning to introduce foreign players into their sports. So why do we keep harping on ours?

The most ridiculous and contradicting comments I hear about our team show how unreasonable some of us can be!

For instance, a general comment when Singapore played with China was: ‘Aiyah, it’s China against China what.’

When our team lost or did not fare well, the comments I hear are ‘aiyah, how can Singapore win China’, ‘Singapore players lack perseverance’, ‘Singapore players cannot catch up the scores’, etc, etc.

But when our players won, guess what they say?? ‘Aiyah, they are from China, it’s not a Singapore win’.

See what’s the contradiction? With the negative things against Singapore, these players become Singapore players. With the positive things happening to Singapore, these same players become China players.

My big question is: WHAT’S WRONG WITH US? I just wanna enjoy a good game and such irritating comments really put me off and spoil my day!! Why can’t we enjoy simple things in life and have to make everything wrong?

Anyway, I am going to enjoy watching my Synchronised Swimming Team Free Routine this afternoon. I am sure I will enjoy because there is not Singapore team for our own people to comment about.

23 Aug 2008
11.15am