It's about sportsmanship

Categories: Singapore
There were questions raised on why Singapore send the netball and swimming teams to the Commonwealth when they had failed to show any good results. This is very sad because somehow in the quest for excellence, some Singaporeans have forgotten such thing call sportsmanship. Everything had boiled down to dollars and cents.

There are many reasons for sending a team to a major tournament. One of which is to gain experience. This is invaluable because this is the only way you can gauge your standard. Sure by all standards the netball team lost miserably. But if the team was not sent to the Games, how do one know about such disparity? It is only by such participation that such things can be gained. Painful lessons indeed but unfortunately a necessary steps.

The were also talk about wasting taxpayers money by sending the swimming team. To quote a writer to the Straits Times: "The swimmers were in the last three places of every race, which tells us that we still have a long way to go to compete at the world level. Though they did us proud in the last SEA Games, sending them to the Commonwealth Games seems to be a waste of taxpayers' money. Did we send the team just for the sake of doing so?" How does one improve if one chose to avoid competition? No doubt it always feels good to win the gold but do you just want to win a regional competition only? Wouldn't it be cheating yourself if you just chose to win 'small' regional competitions and avoid the major meets? In the long run it will be counter-productive because complacency may creep in and other swimmers from around the region will catch up and we will loose our advantage. The only way forward is to compete in major international meets to gauge our standards, experience world class competition and push ourselves forward. Already some swimmers have supassed their personal best in this Games.

One should not forget about sportsmanship. This was the main theme in all sporting events until the advent of professional sports and the current renumeration system for the victors. Sportsmanship means "conduct (as fairness, respect for one's opponent, and graciousness in winning or losing) becoming to one participating in a sport" according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Sure the netball team and the swimming team did poorly but I am sure they had tried their best for the country and that counts. In this respect, I must congratulate the Sri Lankan diver for participating in the Games. This is because the level of difficulty alone will already ensure that he will be last in his event but he chose to participate anyway. Winning or losing is not everything in sports, it is about participating to the best of one's ability. Along the way in our quest for excellence we seem to have forgotten about this.