I refer to the debate in Voices about foreign-born and local-born athletes.
Since the Foreign Sports Talent Scheme was introduced, table tennis has consistently churned out medals of varied hues, while other sports have failed on the global and even regional stage, never mind what the optimists say about performance satisfaction or improvement.
It is not that other sports are not given the opportunities and/or resources to excel. Take, for example, shooting: Our marksmen won five golds at the Commonwealth Games four years ago but only two this time.
Meanwhile, our paddlers garnered six golds, two silvers and two bronzes, contributing the lion’s share of Singapore’s eight gold medals in Glasgow.
If Singaporeans, Sport Singapore and the sporting fraternity are fine with the notion of our country going missing from the podium in future meets, by all means field a team of all local-born players and we will see.
Henry Ong
*Article first appeared on TodayOnline Forums (26 Aug)