LBW Defends Buying Ping Pong Medals In Place of Competing With True SGs!

[h=1]LEE BEE WAH WAS CONSTANTLY BOTHERED BY THE FOREIGN TALENT ISSUE[/h]
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16 Aug 2014 - 9:57am





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Lee Bee Wah, the president of the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) announced yesterday that she would not be standing for re-election in the September 6th election.

She has been in charge for the past six years and has seen several successes including the first Olympic medal in 48 years, a win at the World hampionships and the recent string of wins at the Glasgow commonwealth games.
However, despite the success of the table tennis team under her watch, she had also constantly struggled with the foreign talent issue which had again resurfaced at the commonwealth games.

Many Singaporeans do not feel proud of the table tennis team's achievements as they feel that Singapore has simply "bought" players to win medals.

While there are a small number of local born talents, they are often sidelined and not given as much playtime as their foreign born counterparts.

Lee Bee Wah explained at the press conference yesterday that the STTA has already been working hard to develop young local talent.

She pointed to the development of the STTA-PAP Community Foundation program for kindergarten kids as well as zone training centres for young table tennis players 5 to 11 years old.

They also set up a school-within-a-school at the Sports School to groom future table tennis players

Lee Bee Wah explained that these measures are in place to promote the growth of local talents, but she also said that to develop further, we need to support of parents as potential national players must be training full-time at some point and cannot focus on other studies during that time.

She also highlighted that these grooming measures take time to come to fruition. She said that for example, the German world cup football team is so strong because their youth football programs started over 20 years ago. She said that she hoped in 20 years time, Singapore could also take advantage of the various youth table tennis programs so that there can be high level Singapore born table tennis players in 20 years time too.



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In any case, Lee Bee Wah also admitted that “Whatever we do, we will not be able to please everyone”.
For example, she said that in the commonwealth games, she had asked the coach to field Isabelle Li to play 2 singles matches against Malaysia but the coach had said she was not ready.
Ms Lee noted that if they had fielded Isabelle and lost the Gold medal, there would also be criticism. :oIo:
Ultimately, she said that the STTA goal is to bridge the gap between local and foreign players and she hopes that this work can continue in future even after she steps down as STTA President.
Others who worked with Ms Lee praised her and her achievements to clean up table tennis and promote a more Singaporean team as well as working with the China born players to help them adapt to Singapore and its lifestyle.

“She cleaned up an NSA that had been filled with problems, replacing it with professionalism, respect and hard work. Singapore table tennis will miss the services of Lee Bee Wah,” said Mr Oon Jin Teik, SportsHub chief operating officer and former chief executive officer of the Singapore Sports Council.

This article pretty much captures the reality of the situation that Singapore and its leaders face.

You got to give her credit for realising that FT medal wins are all hollow victories and no one fucking cares. She would have been able to sleep nights having nurtured and fielded locals.

Taking shortcuts in life serves no one. If they genuinely invested time and effort in primary schools and selected a few as feeders, we would have seen some progress by now.

PAP has to realise that MPs involvement in sports is an absolute disaster. In the past, though Sports delivered some success and had a following, there were numerous press coverage on bad management, poor programmes and prima donna sportsmen and women.

Now because of MPS , the press is muzzled or fear negative reporting and the performance is much worse.

scroobal said:

Taking shortcuts in life serves no one. If they genuinely invested time and effort in primary schools and selected a few as feeders, we would have seen some progress by now.

Click to expand...

It won't work as long as the perception of parents is that sport is not going to put food on the table. The biggest stumbling block isn't the government. It's society's value system.

Absolutely Agree.

Society needs to concentrate more on values/value system, and not value. (of property, business, assets, internet moniker, etc)

Leongsam said:

It won't work as long as the perception of parents is that sport is not going to put food on the table. The biggest stumbling block isn't the government. It's society's value system.

Click to expand...

Parents take the cue from the Government. It does shape society's values. Have a bad government and society deteriorates.

Old man has made it clear that sports has no place in his World and none of his kids did anything close in terms of sports.

Schools which are the breeding ground for sports take their cue from the. Govt. ACS is a good example but there is so much the schools and society can do without support from the Govt.

Leongsam said:

It won't work as long as the perception of parents is that sport is not going to put food on the table. The biggest stumbling block isn't the government. It's society's value system.

Click to expand...

Very Well Said. Next time, you can call him Kuan Yew, instead of Old Man.

scroobal said:

Parents take the cue from the Government. It does shape society's values. Have a bad government and society deteriorates.

Old man has made it clear that sports has no place in his World and none of his kids did anything close in terms of sports.

Schools which are the breeding ground for sports take their cue from the. Govt. ACS is a good example but there is so much the schools and society can do without support from the Govt.

Click to expand...

Lee Bee Wah, nobody pointed a gun at your head and ordered you to oversee the development of ping pong as a sport in Singapore.

You're a politician, a PAP politician no less. You are a taint. Stay away from the sports business. Stay far away.

LBW words like "trying"... "explaining"............. they basically mean NO result as far as bring up locals to speed. She scored a "F"

defending the impossible.

Actually was surprised that she was prepared to acknowledge that the FTs are contentious issue. She need not have stepped down but chose to. Its a post with barbed wires.

She however is wrong about Isabelle. We would have been proud to have backed Isabelle even if she lost badly. Isabelle is our own.

Hans168 said:

LBW words like "trying"... "explaining"............. they basically mean NO result as far as bring up locals to speed. She scored a "F"

Click to expand...

Leongsam said:

It won't work as long as the perception of parents is that sport is not going to put food on the table. The biggest stumbling block isn't the government. It's society's value system.

Click to expand...

Government created the value system here mah.

she is a joke.
heard from the TV news that she will PERSONALLY oversea the railway line ( not sure which station ) to avoid unexpected delay.

Sport is suppose to unite people across the racial and political divide. Buying medals by our sports associations only serve to stir up controversy and divide the populace even further.

In this sense, the whole scheme of importing glory had failed miserably.

scroobal said:

PAP has to realise that MPs involvement in sports is an absolute disaster. In the past, though Sports delivered some success and had a following, there were numerous press coverage on bad management, poor programmes and prima donna sportsmen and women.

Now because of MPS , the press is muzzled or fear negative reporting and the performance is much worse.

Click to expand...

Sports are meddled with Pappies politics.
They want to glorify even at the Sports' events.

Leongsam said:

It won't work as long as the perception of parents is that sport is not going to put food on the table. The biggest stumbling block isn't the government. It's society's value system.

Click to expand...

Not very true. I know of parents who send their kids for gym or swimming training before pr school. This guys are loaded. Their kids finally rep singapore, but their results in international meets are only so so. These training a are not cheap, not to count the physio that can cost hundreds per session. If these rich parents can afford to spend so much money for gym or swim, I am sure it is cheaper for ping pong. No, they won't send their kids for ping pong because ang mo don't play ping pong. It is a "low-class" sport to these rich parents and they don't wish their kids to be near it. Yes, parents are the stumbling block, but nothing to do with issue of food on the table.

Leongsam said:

This article pretty much captures the reality of the situation that Singapore and its leaders face.

Click to expand...

you finally admit they r bankrupt of ideas and using publilc money to buy self glorification is despicable.