Without someone acting on a dream to build up the table-tennis team, there would not have been an Olympic medal today. Without the kind coach who took her in and trained her when she was a little girl in China, without the Singapore coach who spotted her in Japan, there would not be the Feng Tianwei we see, heralded in the media, old and new, today.
~ The dream for the table-tennis team ~
| Aug 17, 2008, Sunday Times |
The man behind the medal |
| By Peh Shing Huei |
| Beijing - As he was driving home after a meeting on Friday afternoon, Choo Wee Khiang realised he was not going to make it back in time. The final stop of his two-decade long journey was about to start in Beijing, and the TV screen of a Bedok North coffeeshop would have to suffice. Glued to the plasma set that was showing the Singapore women paddlers in action against the South Koreans for an Olympic final spot, he was a wreck. 'I must have had four cups of kopi-o, but they were all tasteless,' said the immediate past president of the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA). 'I was too nervous.' Unknown to the cheering Bedok crowd as their country marched into the final against China, the stranger in their midst was the man behind the medal. 'Without Choo Wee Khiang, there would be no silver medal. It's as simple as that,' said the STTA's former deputy president Edwin Lee. When Choo joined the STTA in 1989, Singapore's ping pong was, literally, the laughing stock of the region. 'I remember, at a tournament in Kuala Lumpur, people laughed at us. We were that lousy - and always booted out first,' he told The Sunday Times after arriving in Beijing yesterday. But, with a stroke of good fortune, or rather the arrival of former table tennis champion Jing Junhong - whom he refers to as 'Xiao Hong', things started to turn. Jing's marriage to Singaporean journalist Loy Soo Han brought the Shanghai native to Singapore in 1991. And, soon, she was in the colours of red and white. That got Choo, 54, a former MP, dreaming of bigger things. 'We had wanted to be the kingpins of South-east Asia,' he said. 'But, after seeing Xiao Hong, we thought, 'hey, maybe, we can be Commonwealth champions and be among the top three in Asia too, maybe we can explore foreign talent'.' Foreign sports talent was a concept alien to Singapore then. But, with the support of then-Singapore Sports Council chairman Ng Ser Miang, Choo, who stepped down as STTA president last month, started to scour China for young talent. On one of his first trips, in 1993, he spotted a shy, curly-haired girl named Li Jiawei at the Beijing Sports School. 'I also identified Zhang Yining,' he said, referring to China's world No 1 and the defending Olympic singles champion. 'But the Chinese said 'no, no, no, this one you can't take. She is our future world champion'. She was only 12 and they already knew.' With Li as the nucleus, the STTA pioneered the foreign sports talent scheme, and it achieved the most spectacular results. South-east Asia success is taken for granted now. Commonwealth and Asian Games breakthroughs came in 2002, with three golds and two bronzes respectively. Jing and Li also came close to an Olympic medal, when they finished fourth in Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 in the singles. But, when the team event was introduced in Beijing, Choo knew that Singapore needed one more missing piece to grab a medal. He found it in Japan last year, after watching Feng Tianwei play. He made an impassioned plea to the authorities to grant her Singapore citizenship before the Olympics. It was spot on. Feng was the heroine on Friday, winning two matches to help Singapore beat South Korea 3-2 in the semi-final. 'It shows that the foreign talent scheme is still the formula to succeed in international meets,' he said. But, for years, critics have slammed his approach as it has neglected developing local-born paddlers. He remains unaffected. 'We have identified local-born players with world-class potential. But they are also very intelligent kids with good academic results,' he said. 'So the choice is clear - their parents want certificates. It's our culture. 'Let's face it. Being such a small country with little resources, it is very unlikely we will able to field an all-local team and expect to excel against the world's best. 'But I hope this medal will change our mindset. A future in sports can be as bright as any other profession.' So what colour will 'this medal' be? 'We can give China a fight for the gold. It is 50-50,' he said. This time, he will be watching the encounter in Beijing. |
~ The Coach who nurtured a little girl ~
| Aug 17, 2008, Sunday Times |
Ex-coach bats for Feng |
| Shi Yazhou helped build firm foundation in first female student |
| By Chua Chin Hon |
| Beijing - On a cold wintry morning in January 1991, five-year-old 'Le Le' took a fateful seven-minute walk from her home to a neighbourhood gymnasium in north-eastern Harbin that would forever change her life. There, at the Harbin Children Centre, a young Feng Tianwei met Shi Yazhou, her first table-tennis coach and the man who would go on to play a key role in her eventual success as a top player. But it was a meeting that nearly did not happen. At that time, coach Shi's students were all boys. He had never taught a girl full time, much less someone who had never touched a bat. But a neighbour who knew Feng's mother persuaded Shi to give Le Le, the Singapore paddler's childhood nickname which means 'happy', a chance. He relented. 'No one can tell from one look whether a child has any talent for the game, so I agreed to give her a chance,' Shi, 52, told The Sunday Times in an interview in Beijing yesterday. As it turned out, Feng had a natural, almost prodigious, feel for the game. Coach Shi said he played a game with her two weeks after she arrived, and was surprised to find that she could maintain lengthy rallies - unusual both for a newcomer and a player her age. More importantly, the five- year-old showed traces of a fierce competitive streak and discipline beyond her age, traits which soon endeared her to the coach. Her combativeness was further amplified by the playing environment in the by-now-demolished gymnasium. Surrounded by taller and stronger boys, Feng had no shortage of opponents who could chop or smash more powerfully. The predominantly male environment in those formative years could also explain comments in some quarters about Feng's 'masculine' style of play. During training, she was drilled in the basics much like all the other boys, learning proper playing posture, how to deal with a variety of opening serves, and the like. The only thing that he did differently, Shi said with a laugh, was that he would not physically punish Le Le, like he would the boys, for laziness or mischief. Not that he had to. The way he described the young Feng, she was a coach's dream come true. After eight months, she took part in her first citywide table tennis competition and came in fifth in her age group. A year later, she came out tops in the same event. In the six years that she spent with coach Shi, Feng began a winning streak that eventually took her to the provincial team, and then the national squad in 2003. While the call-up took her closer to her long-held dream of playing in the Olympics, it was also a brutal reality check. For one, Feng could not keep up with the tough fitness regime at the national team training, which included regular sessions of long- distance running. The galaxy of stars in China's 'A-team' also made it difficult for her to shine, said Shi. With her chances of getting into China's Olympic squad becoming more remote by the day, Feng left for Japan in 2005 to play in a professional league. But a chance encounter with Singapore's table-tennis coach Liu Guodong in late 2006 revived her Olympic dreams. Coach Shi said he did not know about the details of the meeting, though media reports suggested that the Singapore Table Tennis Association persuaded the Chinese player to make the switch to Singapore in March last year, when she made an impressive debut as an Under-21 player. In January this year, she received her Singapore citizenship. 'Le Le is definitely my top student and I'm overjoyed that she has this chance to showcase her talents on the very pinnacle of the sport,' said Shi, who travelled from Harbin to Beijing earlier this month to watch Feng play in the Olympics. He has four other students who made the national squad in recent years, though none has made the sort of breakthroughs Feng has achieved. The coach, however, preferred to talk in modest terms when asked about the role he played in Feng's success, saying that he merely helped build a strong foundation. Shi instead credited Liu, the current coach, and Singapore for bringing out Feng's full potential. Asked if he had conflicting feelings about today's team final against China, he said: 'To tell you frankly, I hope only that my student will win. Whether Singapore can win, I'm not too optimistic. 'But as long as my student wins, I'm happy!' |
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