*photo for illustration purposes only
Not too long ago my daughter and a couple of other skaters went to compete in the 9th Malaysia National Open Figure Championship. Competition was so rifle that she almost broke down and started to be “obsessed with losing”. Fortunately, she manage to pick herself up quickly and with the encouragement from other competitors, she returned to the ice rink with more zest and determination to excel. Under the intensive training of her coach, she won a bronze in our Singapore National competition shortly after. That’s the spirit of sportsmanship that no textbook can ever teach!
After the incident, I am even more convince of the benefits of participation in competition, especially at the international level. Other than building “winning attitude and confidence”, it also helps to develop positive coping skill to handle stressful or anxious moment. The purpose of competing is not just about winning medals, but rather “to prove to themselves and the rest of the world what they can do”. It is a common belief that “a competitive athlete will learn more from their failures then they do from their successes” as failure to win provides a chance to “evaluate performance”, and “renew commitment to training for the next competition or season” in order to achieve better performance next time. (Preparing Athletes for Competition Anxiety and Stress Management)
In short, participation in international competition is not only essential, but also an integral part of grooming world class athletes. Unfortunately, some of our athletes are not given the opportunities to gain the benefits of international tournament, thanks to our Government's Foreign Sports Talent Scheme (FST). Take the sport of badminton and table tennis, for example, what is the proportion of local talents in our National team? How many of our children are given the opportunity to represent Singapore, and compete with their counterparts from the rest of the world? Without the international exposure, how much can they progress and prove their worth?
Worst, could our athletes “robbed” of the “power of empowerment” because no matter how hard they try, they will never make it to the international podium as priorities are usually given to “foreign talents”? And when our “parachuted talents” from foreign land abandon our country once they “no longer donning national colours” or threw in their towels right before international tournaments (see “Gu Juan Quits Badminton”), the pill gets even harder to swallow. (Please refer to http://therealsingapore.com/content/sg-passport-most-our-foreign-sports-talent-nothing-more-exchange-services)
The growing concerns over the FST scheme and the continuous imports of 2nd or 3rd tier of foreign-born athletes in hordes into our training squads every year is not unfound. It doesn’t seems appropriate to use our taxpayers’ money to help groom other countries’ “less competent” athletes instead of investing in our own kind, given that the sum of money is not small, but tens of millions. Are we investing wisely for our future or are we “squandering off” our peoples’ money?
When we highlighted the dubious practice of charging figure skaters an admission fees that amounts to 9 times of the public to access training in our National/Community ice rink, the Sport Singapore (previously known as Singapore Sports Council) cited “insufficient sports fund”, “expensive utilities bills” and “different utilities subsidies” to explain the extraordinarily high charges that are rare, if not unseen in other parts of the world. When we pressed further, senior officers reportedly suggested we consider to “choose a cheaper sport”, or “sell away their house” or “leave Singapore for a cheaper country” to train if affordability is an issue.
Could the FST be eating into the resources meant for our own talents? Does the scheme help “catalyse the development of sport in Singapore”, raise the standard of local athletes or build “sporting pipelines for Singapore”? Or rather, it robs the opportunities to success from our children as they are denied of adequate training and deprived of the opportunities to interact and compete with their international counterparts?
We need to ask ourselves then, what are our priorities? To nurture and groom local talent so that we can have strong and sustainable sporting culture; or nurture foreign talents to compete and win medals for our country? Sadly, our government’s aims could be in stark contrast to the peoples’ goals and objectives.
While waiting for the authorities to reassess the shortcomings of their policy and put in more effort in grooming local talents, I may have to seriously consider the authorities’ proposal to “switch to a cheaper sport”, “sell away my house” or “leave Singapore for a cheaper country” to support my daughter’s passion in the sport of figure skating. She is not the only victim, and definitely not the last as long as the authorities continue to refuse to restructure their system to address the inadequacy.
Irene Choo
TRS Contributor