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The Straits Times
www.straitstimes.com
Published on Aug 04, 2012
Singapore is a sports weakling because of lack of will, not size
WHILE I offer my unreserved congratulations to paddler Feng Tianwei for doing our country proud with her bronze medal feat in the Olympic women's table tennis competition, my view is that Singapore ought to be striving much harder for sporting success ("Simply Feng-tastic" by Mrs Eunice Ang-Choo Sok Ee; yesterday).
Arguments can be made that we are a tiny nation, and that what we achieved in Beijing 2008 and, now, London 2012 is remarkable.
However, there is a need to be more quantitative and gauge ourselves against countries of similar size.
Let's consider one such quantitative measure - the number of medals based on a country's population.
The top two nations in Beijing 2008 measured by this statistic were the Bahamas and Jamaica.
Remarkably, Jamaica, with a population of 2.7 million, won six gold medals largely because of athletics.
Even if we regard Jamaica as an outlier, Australia, with a population of 21 million in 2008, was ranked fifth in this "normalised" table, grabbing 46 medals of which 14 were gold.
If we were expected to perform as well as Australia in this measure, we should have won 10.3 medals of any colour at the 2008 Olympics.
In fact, another quantitative measure of performance, or key performance indicator, is the medals per gross domestic product.
In this regard, we are 79th out of the 87 countries that won medals in 2008.
We strive to be an economic powerhouse and to excel in every way. But our record in sports has been abysmal.
We are a sporting weakling because of three factors: the collective overemphasis on academic success, the Government's lack of support for promising athletes, and the unwillingness of the Ministry of Defence to grant deferments from national service for male sporting talent in their prime.
We know what the solutions are.
We simply do not have the resolve to do well in sports.
Dr Vincent Tan Yan Fu
www.straitstimes.com
Published on Aug 04, 2012
Singapore is a sports weakling because of lack of will, not size
WHILE I offer my unreserved congratulations to paddler Feng Tianwei for doing our country proud with her bronze medal feat in the Olympic women's table tennis competition, my view is that Singapore ought to be striving much harder for sporting success ("Simply Feng-tastic" by Mrs Eunice Ang-Choo Sok Ee; yesterday).
Arguments can be made that we are a tiny nation, and that what we achieved in Beijing 2008 and, now, London 2012 is remarkable.
However, there is a need to be more quantitative and gauge ourselves against countries of similar size.
Let's consider one such quantitative measure - the number of medals based on a country's population.
The top two nations in Beijing 2008 measured by this statistic were the Bahamas and Jamaica.
Remarkably, Jamaica, with a population of 2.7 million, won six gold medals largely because of athletics.
Even if we regard Jamaica as an outlier, Australia, with a population of 21 million in 2008, was ranked fifth in this "normalised" table, grabbing 46 medals of which 14 were gold.
If we were expected to perform as well as Australia in this measure, we should have won 10.3 medals of any colour at the 2008 Olympics.
In fact, another quantitative measure of performance, or key performance indicator, is the medals per gross domestic product.
In this regard, we are 79th out of the 87 countries that won medals in 2008.
We strive to be an economic powerhouse and to excel in every way. But our record in sports has been abysmal.
We are a sporting weakling because of three factors: the collective overemphasis on academic success, the Government's lack of support for promising athletes, and the unwillingness of the Ministry of Defence to grant deferments from national service for male sporting talent in their prime.
We know what the solutions are.
We simply do not have the resolve to do well in sports.
Dr Vincent Tan Yan Fu
