Singapore was guaranteed their first Olympic medal since 1960—and only their second of all time—by beating South Korea on Friday to advance to the women’s team championship in table tennis. After 48 years, Team Singapore looks set to be bringing back some gold. Singapore’s women will face the women form China, who had recently beaten Hong Kong. Even if they lose the championship match on Sunday, they would still take home the silver.
Somewhat dulling the achievement for the country of 4.6 million, the players and coach that carried Singapore to victory were all imports from table tennis powerhouse China, other than their rivals who hail from Beijing. This is kinda ironic. I don't mean to be racist whatsoever, but this makes me worry about one thing... are our local sportsmen losing out to imports when it comes to winning gold? This may not really be the case, since some of our local sportsmen have won gold from the Asian Games and SEA Games in recent years. This is proof that our finest athletes from Team Singapore, be it homegrown or imported, have been showing vast improvement in recent years.
A weightlifting silver in the 1960 Olympics held in Rome has stood as the city-state’s only Olympic medal. Tan Howe Liang, the man responsible for said achievement, will be proud of Li Jiawei, Wang Yue Gu, Feng Tian Wei and Sun Bei Bei for finally 'ending this drought that had lasted for nearly 50 years'.
Retired table tennis player Jin Junhong, who was so close to getting into the table tennis singles' finals back in 2000, might have been smiling happily from the comfort of her home.
Just a few days ago, Tao Li provided some hope to our vision by getting into the 100 m women's swimming finals, only to secure 5th place (but she did set a new record in the semis).
My opinions towards Li JW have changed slightly for the better, following that 'scandal' with her ex-bf (whose name I shan't mention) in recent times. Following Li's losing out in the women's singles semis (a very similar fate to that of Jin JH) in the 2004 Olympics, I have to say that this win is a definite comeback for her personally. This is a certified hot topic to be discussed by PM Lee Hsien Long in the upcoming National Day Rally.
As the opening verse for the National Day song "We Are Singapore" goes...
"There was a time when people said that Singapore won't make it, but we did."
So I say this to Li Jiawei and Co...
Congratulations on your advance into the finals, and for leaving your mark in Singapore's history of sport. And thank you for helping us realize our sportsmen's vision to achieve some success in the Olympics. :-)
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