What A Pong As Singapore Swings to Chinese Pings

IT is not for nothing that table tennis is also called ping pong by the proletariats. Fitting really; for the Singapore sweep of medals in this sport at the just-concluded Commonwealth Games in Glasgow was widely derided. The win no doubt was greeted by an orgy of self congratulatory back-slapping in Temasek. But amongst its chastened neighbours, they sniffily thumbed their noses at this malodorous pong stemming from this particular brand of ‘Sing’ ping!

The teams that lost out to Singapore for the harvest of gold medals cringed at the foul stink brought to the sporting table. It is all down to Singapore’s tactic of fielding China-born and China-produced players. Sure, the Singapore system embellished what was already coming off the ping pong production line surplus to the China sporting scheme.

Detractors deride Singapore for being so hard up for medals that it has no qualms choosing this short cut style of achieving quick success.

This Singapore sham sporting investment yielded the desired results. It rained gold for its contingent in Glasgow. A six gold medal sweep out of their total haul of 8 by the time Kylie Minogue brought proceedings to a close at Hampden on Sunday. Take ping pong out and they’d only rake in a miserly 2 gold medal haul; both in one sport – shooting!

CASE OF BEING KIASU One must credit the social development strategists employed by Singapore in coming up with this `kiasu’ way to shore up the human resources capabilities of this tiny dot on the globe. Its Sino-centric leadership easily cajoled the restless masses from Mainland China to come and make a new life in amongst what is after all a sympathetic Chinese diaspora – at least at government level.

Dangling appropriate financial carrots (forget all concern for authoritarianism since any such restriction pales in comparison to the strictures the Chinese once lived under and were leaving behind under the yoke of central planning and official nannying. They settled on the one sport that the Chinese excel, bar none – ping pong. If you followed documentaries in National Geographic or Discovery, you will no doubt be fascinated by re-runs of the Chinese sporting machine which believes in hot-housing kids; even to the extent of identifying their potential before copulation – pardon my directness!

Visit any sports training institution and you’ll stumble upon kids practicing forehand drills or backhand returns for hours on end with metronomic intensity.

For a nation of almost 1.4 billion, anyone who makes it into the Chinese Top 100 in this sport would be able to give a good account of themselves on the international stage.

The wily Singaporeans took stock and decided to embark on this `win-gold-at-little-cost’ route.

HERE’S YOUR PASSPORT They offered citizenship to the selected few – surplus no doubt to Chinese requirements, but who are good enough to swamp and sweep all before them; especially when pittled against opposition in some insignificant second tier competition.

For this reason, names that are distinctly Sino-sounding; rather than the usual Anglo-influenced Singapore first names often appear as gold medal winners; as they did on the Commonwealth Games medals rostrum.

This got an Australian ping pong player so incensed that he voiced out his concern at the Glasgow games.

But wait for it, could this be a case of the pot calling the kettle black? When you do have time, look at the Australian roster of players, or the New Zealand roll call of athletes. You’ll find some distinctly non-Anglo names in their lineup. But there is an explanation to that state of affairs. The NZ and Oz as a nation have always attracted immigrants from all over the world, including from Mainland China. Unlike our southern neighbours, they claim not to specifically plunder the sporting cribs of that nation to pick off excess talent with `golden’ intent!