Olympics

There are many who think we shouldn't be proud of a trio of China-born Chinese winning the table tennis women's team silver medal for Singapore. Their sentiments are understandable. On paper, the achievement doesn't have the "Singapore" imprint at all.


One can always argue both ways. But I would like to highlight that India, with a population of one billion, only produces one gold medal (yeah, just one) at the current Olympics. In fact, it is the FIRST TIME India wins any individual sports event at the Olympics. When I was in India, the whole country was jumping up and down at the news that Abhinav Bindra finally brought a gold medal home for an individual event - air rifle. I can't go anywhere without someone mentioning Abhinav. Yawn. To be perfectly honest, how the hell did shooting at flying plastic plates (or is it clay ducks) become an Olympic Sport? If that is the case, I want the pS2 game - Grand Theft Auto :San Andreas to be a Olympic event. I can be very good when I am beating up grannies with a leadpipe to steal their money, I tell you. Man grandmothers lay dead at my feet when they refused to hand over their purses in the PS2 Game. OMG - I almost had an orgasm just thinking about the best players from the whole world converging in the video game to beat up each other and grannies for money and an Olympic gold medal.

The mystery of why India, with a population of one billion, sucks so much at all individual sports is never quite explained. Government's attitude is one, money is another. In a country where there is overwhelming poverty, the government doesn't not look good when funding sports. But what is certain is that if a one-billion country could only produce one gold medallist for donkey years, Singapore (4 million population) has almost no chance in hell. We have hardly any sporting tradition (unlike say Azerbaijan in weight lifting) to speak of and government budget for sports has always been tight. At least the table tennis win is a start and will prompt the government to spend more money on table tennis. Ultimately, we have to specialise (core sports) and get foreign talent to augment what local sportsmen lack. It is a fact of life. Countries like Laos would happily do it except they of course, lack the money to attract foreigners.

Someday, perhaps Singapore-born Singaporean can do us proud by getting a medal at an Olympic event. And I don't mean video games like Guitar Hero. But till that day comes, we need foreign talent to boost the sporting profile of Singapore, attract more commerical sponsors and Singaporeans to take sports seriously as a career. Till that day comes, I will be practising "Welcome to my Jungle" on Guitar Hero on expert mode.