By Les Tan
Will our best youth athletes fly the flag for Singapore as they get older? (Photo © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Any discussion about sports in Singapore will inevitably involve foreign talents these days. The national table-tennis team is described as China’s second team, while the national football team also takes a knock or two from critics because the spine of the squad is foreign-born. The national badminton team also comes in for comments with its mix of Indonesian, Thai and China-born athletes. Some Singaporeans who are born and bred on this little island find it hard to empathise with them.
We live in a different world now. To survive, we have opened our borders to talent. So at our work places, we meet Filipinos, Thais, Americans, Europeans, Malaysians, among others. Do people complain? Yes, they do. There is fear, founded or unfounded, that foreign talents are taking jobs belonging to Singaporeans.
The same arguments engulf our national sports teams. Some foreign-born talents will go to the Olympics at the expense of some Singapore-born players. Those who miss out will naturally feel aggrieved.
There is another perspective in this debate – that supremely talented Singaporean athletes who are as good or better than the foreign talents dropped out long before they hit their full potential. Why? The usual reasons – studies, career. Sit coaches or sports officials down and they will tell of talents who said “No, thank you” to a sports career and went the usual, sensible and rational life route.
Have you seen a footballer so mesmerising at your weekend games and wondered why he never played at national level? Have you seen a badminton player so skillful that you wonder why he never wore full national colours? Have you seen a table-tennis exponent so good that you’d pay money to watch him play? We all have.
Sports remind us of who we are as a people and as a nation because the national teams wear only one flag and carry only one name – Singapore. A national team with a significant foreign-born presence uncomfortably tell us that we are a people of convenience and pragmatism. Whatever works, some say. The ends justify the means, others say. If we get an Olympic medal, who cares whether the athlete is born and bred in Singapore, another will say. But it’s obvious some do care, and at a deeper, emotional and psychic level. Pragmatism gets things done but leaves us cold.
Perhaps, in the end, seeing a foreign-born athlete representing us on the field reminds us of a harsher fact – that one-on-one, on the field or court of play, the foreign-born player is better than us and we are weak. Why? Because if the best of our born-and-bred don’t play, then a significant skills gap opens up, and the foreign-born will beat us and fill it. And if our best born-and-bred don’t play, then no self-respecting coach will ever choose a player just based on the player’s place of birth. He chooses the best and some of the best are foreign-born right now. Coaches are blind to nationality, but their eyes light up to talent.
So the question is this: are our best born-and-bred Singaporeans willing to play?
REDpoll
Feel free to take part in our REDpoll to express your views. Multiple answers are possible.
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This poll was set up in relation to a post by Parliamentary Secretary Teo Ser Luck entitled: Will foreign talents make or break Singapore sports?
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singaporeans drop out cause they dun feel the waste( time + effort) like this they’ll nvr beat our foreign talents. studies is just an excuse. i’ve seen olympians persue their carreers as doctors and lawyers after they’ve retired. and MOST IMPORTANTLY, i’ve NEVER SEEN A SINGAPOREAN PLAY BETTER THAN OUR FOREIGN TALENTS. PLS DO NOT TALK ROT: WHAT “WE ALL HAVE”. ARE U NUTZ OR NUTZ? sry i have limited vocab. as u can tell i’m a sarcastic brat but these come from the bottom of my heart!!!
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Thanks for your thoughtful comments, sports fan. Also, thanks to everyone for jumping in with your own considered comments as well.
No problems with the external news links except that at times the spam filter will pick it up and decide someone is peddling porn and *poof* it’s gone.
We had some outstanding sportsmen before the education system/life became so competitive. So it is not a matter of training, just priorites in life. We simply do not have the numbers/system to compete with bigger countries, our cost of living compounds the problem. Therefore we shd be realistic abt winning medals on our merit, do we have to win at everthing? Some sports have coped without foreign imports (they are not necessariy talents), so do we have to rely on them. Most of them are mercenaries and we have shown to just pay them readily. To me, the money could have been better spent.
A well thought of article.
I share the same sentiments as some of the comments already made: That the country has yet to recognize sports as a legitimate career, and that society, both youth and working adults, have been drilled to be money making machines.
But despite of that, I still say, Yes, there are Singaporeans, born and bred, who are willing to play.
I went full time for a year, one, to pick up skill and fitness as quickly as i could, and two, to hopefully let authorities know of my faith, commitment and dedication. However, the door was slammed back at me, no track record = no support (financially and logistically), like the chicken and egg analogy.
I can only speak of rowing, because it is the sport which I am involved in. Not sure if linking of newspaper articles is allowed, but here are two from the new york times regarding rowing in china.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/sports/olympics/01gold.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=china%20olympic%20rowing&st=cse&oref=slogin
http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/chinas-rowers-keep-racking-up-the-gold/?scp=2&sq=china%20olympic%20rowing&st=cse
watch the video journal as well. Editor, please let me know if it is allowed. Thanks.
Many take backs from the articles. Just to reference on three points. One, Chinese rowers have been slogging it out full time with support, for years, without any gain (just 4 medals, non of which gold, since 1932). Two, a quote from their coach: “Before, they were thinking that a Chinese man’s body is not made for rowing, that the back wasn’t strong enough. But now? They are strong and fit. Now they can see gold medals.” And three, China’s 119 project, an effort on medal-rich sports which China has been historically weak at.
Ultimately, I need to feed myself. But it doesn’t mean I have given up on hope and efforts for sports to be taken seriously in society. And i hope there are others out there as well.
Hi Jan
Oh dear, have I become so predictable that you can expect me to pop up whenever this topic is broached? *grin*
Frankly, I’m quite content as a supporter of local sports if the best some of our local athletes can ever manage is a SEA Games gold. At least it’s a local talent winning it. And if a SEA Games gold is all that that sport can muster under the circumstances, then really, so be it.
But we have shown before that we have the ability to win more than a SEA Games gold. Just rememeber the likes of Adeline Wee, Sheikh Alauddin, Vanessa Yong, Jesmine Ho, Chee Swee Lee, Mardan Mamat, Syed Kadir and Tan Howe Liang.
The list goes on. And it can grow longer.
Do you guys watch the 9pm channel 8 show? It is quite propagandaish (!) wrt the foreign sports talent issue.
Anyway, adding on to Christy’s list of acronyms.. we have PSLE and GCE too, ha ha! Singapore is such an acronymish country!
Hi SSF! I was semisorta waiting for your comment after following the series of articles you’ve ran on this topic on your site. 😉
Shaun is quite spot-on in his analysis.
I ran an interview with a senior officer from the office on this issue, to which he commented that other than perhaps our Sailing youths, most local youth athletes are hesitant in pursuing a full-time sporting career due to a variety of reasons from lack of parental approval to a bleak post-sporting career.
As a result, several NSAs have gotten jaded of grooming local talent/youth because it has been challenging retaining them after they graduate from school, as there are too many societal forces that are beyond the NSAs control. Turning pro is a calculated risk/sacrifice that not many local youths are willing to take/make.
Until there is a solid and sustainable sporting culture established in Singapore first, majority of Singapore will tend to see pursuing a professional athlete career as a sacrifice more often than not. Vis-a-vis the foreign talents, who come here for a stab at pride and glory.
The climate in Singapore is (still) either sports or studies (except the Sailors who train under a system that allows them to balance both, which I think make their system the only one worthy of ‘emulating’). Many of my pro athlete friends are very happy and content (to retire) with just a SEA Games gold (or any colour).
I think there must be a collective effort by all NSAs and the government especially, in creating and promoting a sustainable sporting culture in Singapore — the absence of this, is to me the fundamental root of the problem.
Good, well-written and thoughtful piece, Les
I enjoyed it from start to finish.
But I also believe in developing local talent. And I am brutal enough to say that if the talent in some of our sports are not good enough to be world class, then so be it. I can live with that.
I can also live with a small prinking of foreign talents in our teams to make them stronger in certain areas.
But I cannot live with the idea of importing foreign talent and flooding our national teams to the bink with them, just to make and proclaim ourselves world class.
That is simply deception, that is what some of our NSAs are doing now and I am embarrased to think that they can pull the wool over our eyes so easily. It’s just disgraceful.
That is why any victory by a foreign talent for Singapore will always be a hollow win for me. I can’t even bring myself to celebrate it.
And who says we can’t succesfuly develop local talent into world-beaters without the aid of foreign talent? Just look at Singapore Sailing. Hasn’t it done so? All it needs are a few good men and women who have the passion and belief in local talent and the iron-will determination to put systems and structures in place to turn that belief into reality. Singapore Sailing president Low Teo Ping is one such example.
(see also http://singaporesportsfan.wordpress.com/2008/06/27/low-teo-ping-the-hero-of-singapore-sports/ )
And look at all the world and Asian champions we have produced in the past, without the need for foreign talent.
That is also why I have a page on my site entitled “Singapore Boleh, Local Talent Boleh”. It’s to remind everyone that the Singapore-born athlete is capable of rising to new heights, and of bringing glory to our country on the world stage.
Don’t ever let anyone deceive you into thinking otherwise.
Regards
Singapore Sports Fan
I agree with Christy. In my opinion, i take a pretty absolute view. I feel that Singapore will never make it in the international scene. yes, NEVER.
this is basically due to the system we have in Singapore.
sure, we can have national players for any sports bred and trained since young. such as the under-14 national team, but these players will never, i can confidently say, choose to continue participating in their sports at the older age.
why?
in Singapore, the society doesn’t take care of your life. you are fully in charge of it. this means that the risk to do sports is so high in Singapore that no one would do it until success is seen. something like how certain schools being unwilling to invest in schools sports till they achieve results.
but how is it possible to achieve results without the support from the higher end?
as long as Singapore doesn’t recognize sports as a proper career, in which athletes are paid regularly despite of their performance and achievements. only with such support from the nation, our athletes will be able to engage in full time training and not worry about dying in hunger after they retire from their sports.
and so this is why i volunteered at REDsports, hoping that through my minute effort, i could influence the local sports situation, promoting sports as a legitimate career. through REDsports, all the best Singapore.
If you don’t have talents for everything, live with it. If economics is more important than anything else, so be it.
Or, you can start valuing other things in life and provide the support for Singaporeans who choose to be other than economically well off. Pay people according to the worth of their occupation to you – like they say in Australia, a gardener earns more than a lecturer because his worth reflects the value of their contribution and not whether whether he has some piece of paper.
Singapore government want to be an economical miracle in this region (if not, the world), first and foremost. Our education system drills students to be useful economical units. Sports is a side show. This includes arts related stuff.
LT or FT, it does not matter to them. It is just numbers, like everything else.
My view is that its pretty hard for us to develop better sporting talents as long as Singapore insists on all-rounders.
Simply take a look at China, they have so much people that they can dedicate people to studying and all they really only do is to study for about 10 hours a day. Similarly, they dedicate people to sports and the arts scene also. In China, they only specialize in what they are good at. Simply put, they have no life outside of their sports. If all you do is that sport everyday and that sport is going to be your rice bowl in the future, with a little bit of natural talent, would you not do well?
Students in Singapore now have too much things to worry about. We have results (we even must be all-rounders in studying, taking a mixture of arts and science), CCAs, CIP, NAPFA, etc to worry about.