Foreign sports talent

Categories: Singapore
This blog was inspired by a caller to UFM 100.3 who said that he did not feel very proud when our table tennis team won the gold but felt very proud when Vanessa Yong won the bronze because she is a true blue Singaporean. Of the three panelist, one agreed, one disagreed and another who married a foreigner wonders about her child if he represented Singapore in future.

Foreign sports talent is not new or is it unique to Singapore. A look through the list of participant in the Commonwealth Games official website will reveal that other countries are also represented by 'foreign' sports talent. I am not sure about the response there but certainly in Singapore, this question had cropped up time and again.

Are they any less Singaporean than a Singaporean by birth? I don't think so. They certainly must have shown their commitment during training and had excelled in their sports before they are chosen. As it is, Singapore sports do not tolerate failures. If they have shown commitment to their training, how are they different from the true-blue local sports person?

If they are not less Singaporeans why is it that their achievement is less sweet compared to that achieved by a Singaporean by birth? This question probably can be answered from three different aspects - the level of sports, whether team events or how involved is an athelete with the Singapore system.

For a long time, it is known that sporting results in Singapore had unfortunately been poor. Granted Singapore has Olympic silver medallist Tan Howe Liang in weight-lifting but that was back in 1960! Other successes had been bronze medals in weight-lifting events in the seventies and eighties Commonwealth Games. Great achievements given that during that time sports was not given as much emphasis as now and therefore less support from the Government. Now things have changed. Since the Foreign Sports Talent scheme come into play in 1998, Singapore had been actively scouting out foreign talents to be based here and then grant them citizenship if they made the mark. Table tennis benefitted the most from the scheme. Where previously, Singapore only managed to win the occasional bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games, in 2002, Singapore suddenly made a giant leap with 13 medals, 4 of them gold. However further scrutiny revealed that 12 out of 13 medals were from table tennis with only one from badminton. And all the players who won medals were originally from China! I think this is what Singaporeans are questioning. How can one be very proud when these athletes were pre-selected and not because they had followed the Singapore training schemes and systems? They are essentially made-in-China but repackage as a product of Singapore!

The Singapore football team also have at least 2 'foreign' talent donning the Singapore jersey. But there was no questions asked regarding their 'status'. This is partly because football is a team game and the contribution from 2 talented players may not make too much difference in the outcome. Therefore, the team is still essentially of Singapore flavours. This is unlike the female table tennis team. In 2002 Commonwealth Games, there were no Singapore-born peddlers. In the current games, at least there were 2 born-Singaporeans. However because the team event is dependant on individual results, there is still a lack of local flavours although the Singapore-born contribution is equally important.

Finally, how these athletes come to represent Singapore is significant. If they were born here as permanent resident and eventually they represent Singapore, then I think there is no issue. This is because for all intent and purposes, they are no different from a child born as Singaporean. They grow up in the same environment, study in the same education system and generally subscribed to the same ideology and aspiration. If they migrated here at young age and study the national school here, then they should still be considered 'true-blue' Singaporean. However if they are bigger but migrated not because of their sports skills then I think there should not be any 'discomfort' if they win for Singapore. However if from young they are enticed to Singapore because of their prowess and potential then unfortunately these are the ones that will not raise the same pride as that acheived by a true-blue Singaporean. That is why Stefanie Sun, the superstar singer, is very much accepted as a true-blue Singaporean although she is a second-generation permanent resident earlier on.

Pride and nationalism is a matter of the heart. Because it is a matter of the heart, judgement and common sense sometimes takes a back seat. Maybe the sporting community should look into the issue of imported talent in international events so that we won't be seeing 'China' versus China in table tennis or 'Indonesia' versus Indonesia in badminton, but that will be another blog.

In similar veins: why nobody expresses any discomfort when a non-Singapore-born talent was made a Minister? ..... matters of the heart, I guess.