Recently Feng Tianwei won the bronze medal for the women’s Table Tennis game after beating Japan’s Kasumi Ishikawa 4-0 in 25 minutes on Wednesday. I watched the match as it happened, and I was genuinely proud as I saw her just demolishing her opponent, especially during the final set.

When the match point was scored, facebook’s newsfeed exploded with punny  remarks like “Feng Tianwei FTW(For The Win)!”. However, as the excitement died down, it became apparent that not everyone was that excited about the fact that we’ve won an Olympic medal.

Some people noted that it’s not really Singapore’s medal, and that it was made in China. They also talked about how the Chinese has done it again, coming and hitting balls to earn SG$250,000 from the government.

Perhaps I am biased to begin with, but it made me sad to read comments like that.

I find it sad that despite showing that she has excelled in the sport and winning a medal for the country that she has chosen to fly the flag for, everyone merely questions her intentions rather than be happy for what she has done for Singapore. Even if she was a money guzzling woman as critics has asserted, the fact that she has brought home a bronze medal such a giant step for sports in Singapore. Be it more willingness for private companies and the government to fund sports, or even instilling within children a realistic motivation to get involved in a sport. Getting an Olympic medal is not impossible anymore.

Also, many people seem to simply discard the fact that she has worked hard for that medal. In the end, table tennis is a sport, and requires considerable skill and effort to win. She made an effort to train, and she was rewarded for her efforts with a bronze medal at the Olympics. Do I think that $250,000 is overkill? Yes. However, I do think that for anyone who can prove that they can produce results, a monetary incentive is definitely called for. It only makes sense.

Having said the above, I also like to make a point that I believe that having imported strong talented players for Singapore, especially for the past few years was probably a really good decision. It would not be an understatement to say that sport in Singapore was nowhere near international levels in the 1990s. Any logical long term solution to that problem would require a good coaching team, both knowledgeable about the environment that athletes can train in Singapore, as well as having prior experience either training successful athletes or being one. I argue that this first step has been achieved, especially in our women table tennis team. Also, only with this foundation to work with, can we move towards a more effective training regime for more inspiring Singaporeans to come up to the stand in the future and be a force competitively in the global scene.

However, I believe that by building a strong team today, we have undeniably reduced resources and places for young talent that might have made the mark with them. The SEA games incident with Isabelle Li is a very good example of how the plans fell apart. I do however believe that there’s definitely a fine balance that can be struck, but I can’t really say that with complete certainty.

Another concern is also the question if these foreign talents would continue staying on in Singapore after the prime of their sporting career and switch to coaching in Singapore. Its no secret that many have left promptly, Egmar Goncalves from football, Zhang Xueling from table tennis, Dong Enxin from shot put and Xiao Luxi from badminton. Perhaps there should be more concern placed on why these athletes have simply left after they were done.

Finally, for the ones that simply completely disregard the whole thing just because she wasn’t born in Singapore, I can only say, piss off. I can understand when national pride prompts one to be less excited than if a Singaporean born woman wins the medal, but when xenophobia becomes your reason to disregard the medal, seriously, piss off. Apparently for some of you, winning an Olympic medal is not enough credentials for her to be recognized as making a contribution to Singapore.

Congrats to Feng, and hopefully the team can continue and bring home another medal in the team event.