NEWS in Singapore regarding Table Tennis are always CENTERED around Li Jiawei, Feng Tianwei and Wang Yuegu.

Gao Ning - Sportsman of the Year 2008

As much as i like to know the progress of these girls, i am also interested in our male paddlers’ progress!

Although there are news on them, they are always either shadowed by the women, or hid in a small corner in the newspaper.(Have you ever seen a big article on our male paddler in Strait Times Sports section? Or is the images of our women paddlers more familiar to you in the newspaper?)
Even Today In Beijing, a daily sum up for Beijing Olympics 2008 on Channel 5, has their correspondent in Beijing covering so much of the women’s game and almost 90% of all the table tennis footage belongs to the women, with maybe only 10% of it are for the male.)

Team Singapore Female Table Tennis Team

Just look at THIS. The male’s results were shown in an article with the title, “Olympics: Li Jiawei, Feng Tianwei through to table-tennis quarterfinals“. The purpose of the article was clearly to note the Women progress and not the male eh?
Not only that, their results and progress were only noted at the end of the article. Playing bridesmaid to the women paddlers?
I thought it was only fitting that they get their own article, or a combined article with a more suitable title.

Team Singapore Male Table Tennis Team

Gao Ning, is one of the two Singapore Sportsman of the Year 2008(the other honour belongs to Tao Li, a swimmer) but look what happened to him!

SINGAPORE: It was double tragedy for Singapore’s paddler Gao Ning. Not only did Gao lose his Beijing Olympic third-round match on Thursday morning, but he also broke down after the defeat, as there was no coaching assistance for him during the match.

The incident has upset Singapore Table Tennis president, Lee Bee Wah. She expressed disappointment and sadness over the team manager’s decision to have four coaches prepare for the two women’s quarterfinal matches later in the evening. Li Jiawei and Feng Tianwei were playing in the quarterfinals.

With five coaches in the table tennis team, that meant only one coach was available to both the men players - Gao Ning and Yang Zi.

The Singapore men’s matches were played an hour apart at the Peking University Gymnasium. But Yang, who started his match an hour earlier, was stretched into seven games and overlapped Gao’s match, so Gao had to play without a coach by his side.

Gao lost 0-4 to Croatia’s Tan Ruiwu in just 24 minutes, 11-6, 14-12, 11-4, 11-7.

Yang won 4-3 against seventh-seeded Chuan Chih Yuan of Taiwan.

Ms Lee said someone will have to be accountable for the incident.

“Just bear in mind, this is a livelihood of our players and our players have been training very hard for the last four years and what they are waiting for is this day. I really feel disappointed. Someone will have to be accountable for this,” she said.

But Ms Lee said any remedial action will have to be taken after the Olympics.

Channel NewsAsia has learnt that Gao’s coach Chen Jian fell ill at the last minute and couldn’t make it to the match. So Yang’s coach Zu Haining was left to cover both men’s matches.
[from ChannelNewsAsia]

Yang Zi and Li Jiawei in 2006

It must be realised that we should be fair to our athletes and give them equal treatments and benefits to excel in their sports, no matter their skills level. In the end, they put alot of efforts in their trainings, and the Olympics is a event once in only 4 years.
I think if it happens that Yang Zhi and Gao Ning actually had a chance at medals, the media attention and the team attention will surely shift to them too.
While Gao Ning may not win even with the help of a coach, but without a coach to guide him through is like trying to fight on without an arm or a leg.
It’s very regrettable that our Sportsman of the Year is actually given a lower par treatment and how materialistic and realistic is the Table Tennis Team.

Do not show double standards Team Singapore, it’s not professional.