When I first learnt that Singapore had won the World Table Tennis Team Championships, I was not exactly overawed. My sentiments were similar to that of many Singaporeans, that it was a case of China's "B" team beating the "A" team.
However, looking back, I have to admit that I am ashamed of such behaviour. I am not a government crony, and I have certainly not been paid or threatened to develop favorable feelings towards foreign talent. However, I do believe that we should give these gutsy women the credit where it is due.
The main bone of contention is probably with the controversial foreign talent scheme. However, I shall attempt to explain why this scheme is actually necessary, for a small country like Singapore to ever shine on the world stage in sports.
Singapore is a small country, and as a result, our talent pool is small. What the government is actually doing is fast-tracking the development of local sporting talent for our country. For any country new to sports, there is inevitably a gulf in talent between established teams and nascent ones.
If you are familiar with sports, you will know that it is a whole infrastructure that produces world class sportsmen. The best athletes are not just born with talent, but the talent is also nurtured out of them by the best coaches, by competition at a similar level, and by world class facilities to support their development. Rome was not built in a day, and neither can we expect a world-class sporting infrastructure to be developed from scratch in no time.
These foreign born talents are our catalysts. They come in at a level that is already higher than that of any local sportsperson, simply because they were born and bred in a system that placed sports above all else. They are the people whom we are building our sports infrastructure around, because they are close to world class, and they are the guinea pigs for the world class athletes we will one day produce.
Because of their victories, they are inspiring a new generation of youngsters to join our local sports academies, carrying dreams that will one day be the dreams of the nation. Because they are around, our local born sportsmen have talent to train with, to benchmark themselves against, so that one day, they will be amongst the best in the world.
If anything, we should salute the contributions of these people, who are selfless enough to renounce everything they had back home, to come here and train hard, enduring diet plans, strict physical and mental conditioning, and training conditions that most of us would find difficult to endure. They are willing to fight for every point to win us over, and despite that, we throw flak at them, and call them "Chinese rejects". It is a bitter pill to swallow, and if you were to put yourself in their shoes, as someone who has given the best 10 years of your life training hard for a nation that doesn't love you, would you leave?
For every skeptical and ignorant male that has thrown flak at them, if you had to serve 10 years of National Service, which is close or even less than the level of physical and mental conditioning these women endure, not to mention other sacrifices like a lack of time for socialisation due to frequent competitions in tournaments, and not have the nation you served recognise you for your services, could you take it? Would you feel a sense of injustice? Would you not wish to leave?
You might criticise them as not being locally born, and hence not fit to carry a Singaporean passport, or have a pink IC. Have you asked yourself, what is so great about your nation? Should we not even be proud that despite all the flaws of our people, like our rabid xenophobia, we have people who are willing to go to such great lengths to win victories for us?
They may not be born here, but most of our grandparents were not either. They won their citizenships with hard work and service to our nation. We should recognise people who have served us well, because citizenship earned is most valuable, not one that is given by birthright, as people who have something valuable but know not its value are the ones least likely to treasure it.
When I watched the game again, when I saw how our ladies fought for every point, and gave their all in an atmosphere that was intense and nerve wracking, how they had the courage to beat the giants when everyone was telling them it was impossible, I saw Singapore.
We have always been the underdogs, a nation built on survival against the odds, and this was precisely what the situation was. The way they achieved their victory, it was a culmination of pluck, graft, luck, and pure skill.
It was quintessentially Singaporean.
Sporting talent can develop regardless of how big a country is. It is incorrect to say that Singapore can never produce world class talent, because history is littered with countless examples of countries with small populations that have produced great talents. The best tennis player in the world, Roger Federer, is Swiss, from a nation of just over 7 million people. Annika Sorenstam, the former queen of golf, was from Sweden, a nation with a population of slightly over 9 million, one third that of Malaysia. There are many more examples, if we were just to look.
What is important is, we must have the infrastructure ready, so that when we have such talents, we can nurture them to be the best they can be. One day we will have our local bred world class sporting talents. The key is patience, and unstinting support for anybody who is proud and willing to wear Singapore colours, so that people will know that Singapore is proud of its athletes.