Aviva Open Singapore 2005 - Impressions

Like Sunzhi, I didn't watch the whole of his matches as there are other matches being played simultaneously. So we fleet from one match to another most of the time.

But I think Chetan must be one, if not the best, of your players. He had to qualify to the main draw by beating two players and beat another two, namely Sasaki of Japan and Dicky Palyama, seeded 15, of Indonesian origin and now playing for the Netherlands. Dicky is a good player to justify that seeding and to be able to beat him, Chetan must be good.

Yes, I have seen Chetan play before. He has improved tremendously and is calm and collected on court. He evokes a sense of self-confidence and his skill is better. I think he must have put in quite a lot of hard work and I wonder who his coach is? Pudukone? For the SO, he is the most successful of all the Indian players and by all accounts, he must be the number one in India now. He can only be better if he continues to put in more training.

BTW, the road sign "GIVE WAY" tells the motorist to give way to traffic on the right as that location is a circle.

 

Hi DaN_fAn

I just found two more pics of Chetan Anand during his R3 match with Peter Gade:

 

When I say short cut, it doesn't necessarily mean what you are suggesting.

Long time ago, we had our very own badminton maestro, the late Wong Peng Soon. But because of the nature of our society then, when the majority of Chinese parents wanted their talented children to study first, play later, sports never took priority.

It was only recently, say last 5 to 10 years, that greater efforts have been placed on the arts and sports by the government and the local National Sports Associations once Singapore has achieved a comfortable level of economic development. To a certain extent, it was found that the arts makes more creative people and sports can help improve productivity in the sense that sports can improve health which then reduces the incidence of illness and sick leave.

The so-called 'short-cut' is to help us reduce the time taken to revive our badminton prowess sparked off so long ago (in the 1950's) by the great Wong and his teammates. Since it will still take some time to convince parents to readily send their sports talented children to the special Sports School (only in its third year of operation (?) compared to other countries in the region like Malaysia and Indonesia) and more time (at leat 4 to 6 years) to develop SS kids, who are admitted when they are about 12 years old, into regional and international athletes. So importing talented children from this part of the world and developing them with our resources is one way to go about it to beef up our numbers.

From time to time, popular names like Taufik, when the opportunity arises, may be engaged to help popularize the badminton game here and they have indeed delivered. And when our players win regional and international competitions, they also help raise the popularity level of badminton to such a frenzy as was the case last year.

Engaging and importing foreign talents come at a price. The price is determined by market conditions. The question of cheapness is relative. If the market price, together with other related living conditions, is not right then foreigners won't come if they have a better choice.

But for Singapore this arrangement has been a "win-win situation". Some of our imported talents are now Singapore citizens. Obviously they must have decided that it is better for them. Indeed, had such foreign talents remain in their home countries, they may not have the opportunities they are now enjoying, comfortable pay, overseas travel, competiting against the best in the world, prize moneys, bonuses, etc.

I suppose once Singapore has built up its own talent pool, there will be less need to import. But I think to a certain extent, Singapore is disadvantaged in this area as it has a small population and there are many competing demands on its talented young. In other words, our badminton talent base will continue to be small and this makes it difficult for us to really shine on the world stage.

This policy of importing foreign talents is not restricted to Singapore. Many European countries which are richer than Singapore are doing so as well. Globalization and the liberalization of such countries as China, where hitherto travel is controlled, make it possible for talented sports people to ply their wares elsewhere.

 

True, but it will be a sense of achievement for the foreign talent and his/her host country if he/she should beat her 'countryman'. As is normally the case, the foreign talent is considered not good enough to represent his/her own country and is one reason why he/she left in the first place.

 

I think you are not aware that the Inter-Constituency Tournament has been going on for many, many years and it is competitive and well-supported with a record number of entries this year. Sealman has reminded us in this Forum about this year's competition, which was once again won by Mountbatten. Hitherto there was hardly any publicity and only those directly involved (and there are quite a number) knew of its popularity. If you care to go to the PA website you will find the details of this tournament.

Quite the contrary, the SBA has not been sleeping. It has grown in strength and stature with a Minister in charge and its various programmes have been updated, unpgraded and well-thought out. I have from time to time posted some of the achievements of the SBA, on its ability in organizing numberous well-run tournaments (the just concluded Aviva Open Singapore 2005 is one good example), which have expanded to included not only age-group competitions but also the Masters events (for the senior and veteran players) and Youth Internationals. You could see a calendar of events on the SBA website which included more traditions ones like the National Championships, Satellite, the Singapaore Open, etc.

Apart from this, the SBA has recently been rather successful in getting sponsors. Apart from Yonex, a traditional source of support for badminton related equipment, Cheers and Aviva, together with other companies, have been roped in to finance SBA programmes. Aviva is a new name here and the ability of SBA in luring this very large British insurance company is a feather in its cap. Commitments from companies are normally for a few years.

And more recently the SBA Management has organized a golf tournament which brought in more than a million Singapore dollars to start a Players Endowment Fund, which is meant to assist players financially when they retire from active playing.

You already know something about our foreign-talent scheme. The initiatives from SBA to talent-scout from nearby countries to be trained and represent Singapore have been discussed in these Forum pages at some length. This scheme has brought about satisfactory results and helped raise local standards. Ronald Susilo has already made a name for himself and is now well-assimilated into Singaporean society. He and Li Jiawei will probably marry and set their roots in Singapore. This may be followed by Li Li, who already has a steady.

I'm sure there are more in the pipeline as the SBA is serious in its goal of putting Singapore in the World Badminton Map.

So are we fair in saying SBA is sleeping?