Mission complete? Li hopes to win medal in singles

Mission complete? Li hopes to win medal in singles

BEIJING: She led the Singapore paddlers to a historic Olympic silver medal yesterday, but captain Li Jiawei is uncertain if she will be at the 2012 Games in London.
‘I’ve not thought about that,’ she said yesterday. ‘But I will try my best for all competitions that I’m entered.’

This is Li’s third appearance at the Olympic Games. She narrowly missed winning a bronze medal in Athens four years ago.

But after beating the South Koreans in a gruelling semi-final match on Friday, she and her teammates were assured of at least a silver medal in yesterday’s final.

Li told The Straits Times: ‘I’m very happy to win this medal. It belongs not just to me, but to everyone who supported us in Singapore.

‘I know my defeat in Athens saddened a lot of people four years ago, so today’s medal is a present for Singapore.’

Li, together with teammates Wang Yuegu and Feng Tianwei, took on the powerful Chinese in the finals of the women’s table tennis team competition yesterday evening.

They played two singles and a doubles match, with Singapore losing 3-0 in about 1 hr 32 mins.

Yesterday’s match was the longest the Chinese team had played in the tournament, though the top seed never looked genuinely threatened by the Singapore side.

Li took on world No. 1 Zhang Yining in the second singles match, and lost 1-3. She then partnered Wang Yuegu in the doubles match, but lost 0-3 to China’s Zhang and Wang Nan.

At a post-match press conference, a German reporter asked Li pointedly why she and her teammates were smiling despite losing in the finals.

She responded: ‘I smiled because I was very happy. I feel that the Chinese team is the strongest.

‘By meeting them in the finals, I feel that we have already achieved our pre-set target. But we still tried our best for every game. Even though we lost to the Chinese team, we felt that we have already achieved our mission, so we were very happy.’

Li will likely have a rematch against some of the Chinese players this week, as the table tennis women’s singles tournament begins on Wednesday.

Asked if she thought she had a shot at another medal in the singles tournament, she said: ‘I will try my best in every match. I definitely hope to win one more medal for Singapore.’

Source : Straits Times - 18 Aug 2008

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Medal dreams come true - Singapore

Medal dreams come true - Singapore

Gutsy Feng rewards parents’ toil and sacrifice

By Chua Chin Hon, China Bureau Chief

BEIJING: THE silver medal around Feng Tianwei’s neck last night was the fulfilment of a long-held dream of her late father, Feng Qingzhi.
Mr Feng died from multiple sclerosis in 2002, just weeks before his daughter was to try for China’s national B squad.

She topped the qualifying matches and earned a national team call-up in 2003. But she fell ill for a long spell and a source close to her said it was ‘because she missed her father too much’.

Friends described Mr Feng, a granary worker, as a doting father who never once scolded his only daughter.

‘All the neighbours who watched Friday’s semi-final said it was a pity he did not live long enough to see his girl play in the Olympics,’ said another person close to the family, who live in the north-eastern city of Harbin.

Feng’s mother, Madam Liu Chunping, 46, still lives in Harbin, where she works at a department store. For years, she and her husband scrimped and saved to pay for their daughter’s table-tennis training.

Feng, however, kept her emotions in check last night, only saying that her silver medal had definitely fulfilled her late father’s dream.

‘I will take it back to Harbin to show my mother,’ she said.

After her impressive performance during Friday’s semi-final clash where she came out the winner after a tense battle against her South Korean opponent, expectations were high yesterday that the 21-year-old would pull off an upset against her Chinese opponent.

In particular, many were hoping for a rematch between Feng and world No.1 Zhang Yining. The Singapore player scored a shock victory over Zhang earlier this year at the Asian Cup in Sapporo, Japan.

Instead, Feng was drawn to play world No.5 Wang Nan. There was no repeat of her earlier giant-killing feat.

Though Feng started well by claiming the first game 11-9, she struggled subsequently against her cannier and more experienced opponent and lost the next three 3-11, 8,11 and 6-11, and with that, her match.

Asked about her performance, Feng said: ‘I felt I didn’t play too badly. My opponent played better than me and she is much more experienced. This is a good learning experience for me.’

Watching from the stands, Shi Yazhou, Feng’s very first table-tennis coach, said she needed to sharpen her killer instinct and improve on her serve.

He told The Straits Times: ‘Tianwei was a little tense in the beginning, and she could not deal with her opponent’s change in pace and tactics. This is still a matter of experience.

‘But to win at this level, she will really need some killer moves.’

Source : Straits Times - 18 Aug 2008

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When sport rallies a nation

When sport rallies a nation

‘Sporting’ gesture by PM emblematic of what Singapore stands for

By Chua Mui Hoong, Senior Writer

THERE comes a time in a nation’s history when even the country’s top leader must give way to youth, when experience and track record make way for the promise of potential, when politics bows out to sports.
This is when an entire nation roots for Team Singapore at the Olympics.

This year’s National Day Rally will be remembered less for announcements on policy matters than for the unprecedented decision taken by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to delay the ‘live’ telecast of his English speech by a day.

The Malay and Mandarin portions of the speech were telecast live yesterday, ending at about 7.30 pm - just in time for hundreds of thousands of Singaporeans to watch the Singapore-versus-China live telecast of the women’s table-tennis team finals at the Beijing Olympics.

Mr Lee’s decision can be taken many ways.

As a gracious move by a politician.

It can also be viewed as a realistic assessment of just which event will win in a head-to-head ratings competition.

Each year, about 650,000 people tune in to the rally on television, giving citizens a chance to view and hear unfiltered and ‘live’, their Prime Minister speaking for over two hours.

But the ratings number will likely pale in comparison to the number tuning in to the Olympics final last evening.

I choose to view the decision to concede the live telecast time to the sporting event as emblematic of what August is all about in Singapore: when a nation comes together to celebrate being one nation, regardless of race, language, religion - or country of origin.

Politics is, after all, a means to an end: the end being the building of a nation. Sometimes, the smart leader understands that sports does a better job than politics of rallying people round the flag.

August is a special month in Singapore’s calendar: Aug 9 commemorating Independence, and the National Day Rally taking place about two weeks later.

That Singapore is a nation of diverse races and religions is a creed drummed into every young citizen.

PM Lee’s speeches in Malay and Mandarin and English are reminders of this, just as a swift look at the 1,700-strong audience at the University Cultural Centre - the tudung-clad women, turbaned men, Chinese women in cheongsam - is a visual reminder of the country’s rich, diverse, heritage.

In Malay, he spoke of the need to upgrade ageing mosques and to devote more funds to religious education. In Mandarin, he spoke of cost-of-living pressures, reminding us that the Government had earmarked $3 billion in relief to help Singaporeans.

This year, Singapore as one nation regardless of country of origin was a leitmotif hovering in the background of Mr Lee’s speech.

He addressed the concern that the country’s open-door policy towards immigrants was discomfiting Singaporeans who fear foreigners are taking away their jobs, or depressing wages. He said this was not the case, since unemployment was very low and there were jobs aplenty for all, including older workers.

Foreign talent, in business as in sports, provided a leavening of Singapore society, bringing in a tier of top talent to ’strengthen our team’, he said in Mandarin.

A country of immigrants, Singapore continues to be home to new immigrants who choose to call it home, continuing its magic of turning promise into performance, burnishing dull mettle into the glossy patina of champions in the world arena.

Feng Tianwei, the 21-year-old dynamo who won both singles games in the semi-finals against South Korea last Friday to clinch the Republic’s spot in the finals last night, is a case in point.

She was a relative nobody in China, not making it to the top ranks of the national squad. Last August, she was ranked World No. 73. When she played in this year’s Olympics, under the Singapore flag, she was No. 9.

As PM Lee noted, new immigrants make up half the 25-member team competing in the Beijing Olympics. This includes the entire China-born table-tennis team of Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and Feng, who paddled their way with grit to a silver medal - the Republic’s first Olympic medal in 48 years - and into the nation’s heart.

It was apt that the table-tennis team event was an Olympic first, and apt, too, that after two near-misses in individual events in past Olympics, it was at a team event that Team Singapore managed a medal.

It was also apt that team captain Li, whose birthday falls on Aug 9, asked for and was granted the honour to be flag bearer for Team Singapore. ‘This is my way of showing everyone that everything I’ve ever achieved is because of Singapore,’ she said.

Some cavilling Singaporeans may sneer that Team Singapore was ‘bought’ foreign talent - but they may want to look back into their not-too-distant ancestry to recall that they themselves are probably children or grand-children of immigrants.

This country, built on the sweat of immigrant labour in the pre-industrial economy, cannot afford to close its doors to foreigners in the New Economy.

No matter their country of origin, what matters is that Li, Wang and Feng, and many, many more of those watching the finals at home, and their forefathers - made a conscious choice to be Singaporean and to be part of Team Singapore.

Or, as the late minister S. Rajaratnam, who penned the Singapore Pledge, once put it: ‘Being Singaporean is not a matter of ancestry, but of conviction and choice.’

Team Singapore triumphed - because its members chose Singapore, and fought as a team. In the end, that is what the Singapore spirit is all about.

Source : Straits Times - 18 Aug 2008

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Silver, but they’re our Singapore Golden Girls

Silver, but they’re our Singapore Golden Girls

Much to be proud of even though Singapore lost to juggernaut China

By Marc Lim, Sports Correspondent

(From left) Wang Yuegu, Feng Tianwei and Li Jiawei proudly displaying their hard-won silver medals. The contest lasted 1hr 32mins, which in itself was an accomplishment, given that no team at the Olympics had stretched the Chinese past the hour mark previously. — ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM

BEIJING: The medals were silver, but the mood felt like pure gold.
Singapore’s women table tennis players finished their Beijing adventure as runners-up to the world’s most formidable team from China.

In Beijing and across Singapore, the country’s first Olympic medal in almost half a century was reason to cheer. And how they roared.

Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and Feng Tianwei were all smiles at the end of their 92-minute battle. They lost 3-0, but this proved the longest game the Chinese champions had fought in the tournament.

All around them, from team officials to Singaporeans in the stands of the Peking University Gymnasium, there were only proud faces, Singapore flags raised high, and loud cheers.

Poignantly, it was Mr Ng Ser Miang, the International Olympic Committee executive board member from Singapore, who presented the medals to the silver medallists and gave each of them a hug of congratulations.

He said afterwards: ‘At the Athens Games, Jiawei came so close to winning a medal. Winning it now makes today’s medal all the sweeter.’

Beijing-born Li said: ‘I am very excited to win the silver medal. It is my way of repaying Singapore for having confidence in me and grooming me all these years.

‘I’m really happy and feel like crying.’

She had wept after last Friday’s epic 3-2 semi-final win over South Korea. That battle lasted almost four hours and earned the Singapore trio their date with China last night.

But beating world champions China in front of 5,000 boisterous fans - including Chinese President Hu Jintao - was always going to be a tall order.

Not to mention that Singapore had not beaten China in the team event in two previous encounters, losing 0-3 and 1-3 in the Asian and World Championships.

Feng Tianwei, the heroine in the battle against South Korea, gave Singapore an unexpected lead, taking the first game 11-9 against 2000 Olympic singles champion Wang Nan.

But that was about the closest Singapore came to winning on a night when China showed why they are the undisputed champions of the game.

Cheered on by the flag-waving home crowd, Wang recovered to win 11-3, 11-8, 11-6 and take the first game.

Li, who had suffered a heartbreaking bronze-medal loss at the 2004 Athens Olympics, also took the first game against world No. 1 Zhang Yining.

But after the 9-11 loss, Zhang - a former teammate of Li’s at Beijing Shichahai Sports School in the 1990s - stormed back 11-3, 11-4, 11-7.

Two games up and with the atmosphere becoming almost carnival-like in the arena, it was left to Zhang and world No. 2 Guo Yue to seal China’s victory.

They made light work of Singapore’s Li and Wang Yuegu, winning 11-8, 11-5, 11-6.

Wang Nan confessed afterwards that nerves had affected her performance.

She said: ‘As table tennis is China’s national sport, everyone expects China to win the gold. I was very nervous, but as soon as I got involved in the match, I shook off the nerves.’

Singapore had expected Feng to face Zhang in the opener and then for Li to take on Wang Nan in the second game.

Both Feng and Li had beaten Zhang and Wang Nan respectively in matches earlier this year.

But a tweak to China’s usual line-up wrecked Singapore’s plans.

Still, Singapore coach Liu Guodong maintained that his team played to their best, and went as far as to rate them 100/100.

‘It’s impossible to beat China. We prepared for the other teams. We met opponents that we did not want to meet, like South Korea, but we managed to beat them,’ he said.

‘China are the best, but among all the other countries, we are the best.

‘Our mission was to deliver a medal and we won the silver. We can be very proud of that.’

The pocket of Singapore fans at the final yesterday agreed.

Said 29-year-old Neo Yong Aik, a Singaporean working in Beijing who was there with two friends: ‘It would have been nice if they had won, but just being here today is special.

‘To see the Singapore flag being raised at the Olympics, it is truly historic.’

Singapore National Olympic Committee president and Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean called the team’s effort ‘tremendous’.

President S R Nathan, who is in Henan, sent his congratulations too, saying: ‘In the finals, our team met a formidable team with a world reputation; they did their best and therefore have no reason to be disheartened.

‘In my eyes, they remain proud.’

PM thanks medallists
PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong interrupted his National Day Rally last night to update the audience on the results of the Olympics women’s table tennis final.
He also made a live conference call to Singapore chef de mission Tan Eng Liang in Beijing to congratulate the team.

Mr Lee said: ‘Our paddlers have done very well and they have done Singapore proud. Please thank them for us.’

Soon after the third and last game wound up, Mr Lee said: ‘I’ve got a message. We have lost 0-3. We were up against a very strong China team, I think they’ve done us proud.

‘We should congratulate them, and rejoice and celebrate.’

His audience cheered.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
‘China are the best, but among all the other countries, we are the best.

‘Our mission was to deliver a medal and we won the silver. We can be very proud of that. ‘
Singapore coach Liu Guodong

Source : Straits Times - 18 Aug 2008

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Rising costs: Singapore Govt on top of problem

Rising costs: Singapore Govt on top of problem

By Jeremy Au Yong

SINGAPOREANS are receiving more help this year to deal with rising costs, said the Prime Minister last night, as he reassured the people that the Government is on top of the problem.
To give people a better grasp of the total amount going to them, in rebates and direct cash, PM Lee Hsien Loong cited as an example what a family living in a three-room HDB stands to benefit by.

It is $5,000 - a ‘considerable amount,’ he said yesterday.

However, the help given appears to be lost on Singaporeans and Mr Lee suspects it is because the Government does not make a big show of it. Also, the help is indirect and people do not connect these measures with the prices of daily necessities that they see going up.

Mr Lee Hsien Loong put inflation on top of the agenda of his Chinese speech at the National Day Rally, alongside talk of tackling the low birth rate plus the need for foreign workers and new immigrants.

Earlier, in his Malay address, he described a new role for an old fund.

He suggested that the Mosque Building and Mendaki Fund be channelled to upgrading old mosques as well giving more help to dysfunctional Malay families.

These were the only two speeches telecast live on TV yesterday, as Mr Lee had postponed the broadcast of the main English speech to tonight.

He explained the unprecedented move to the audience of 1,700, which included opposition MP Chiam See Tong, as well as Nominated MPs Thio Li-Ann and Siew Kum Hong.

‘This is my most challenging National Day Rally - because it coincides with the women’s table tennis finals at the Olympic team event in Beijing. Let us start by wishing all the best to Team Singapore,’ he said, to loud applause.

It was a light-hearted start to a night that saw PM Lee delving into the country’s most pressing issues.

Speaking on inflation in Mandarin, he said that while he does not claim to have rescued the people in their hour of need, the Government is doing its best.

For instance, Singaporeans were given Growth Dividends cash in April, following the large Budget surplus, as well as GST credits to offset last July’s two-point hike in the Goods and Services Tax. More Growth Dividends will be given in October.

In all, the Government is splashing out $3 billion to ease cost-of-living woes, with the low-income getting special attention.

‘Of course, the Government cannot give hongbao every year. We are not the God of Fortune,’ he said.

In addition to the hongbao, Mr Lee also highlighted the work of community organisations.

Grassroots organisations, for instance, have been giving more hampers, food and other aid to needy families.

The Community Development Councils are also working hard. The PM singled out some of them for fitting energy-saving lightbulbs for poor families to help cut their power bills, among other measures.

Despite the help given, PM Lee noted that some feel that the Government is still not doing enough.

Some even felt that the Government was contributing to inflation with fee increases, and should hold the latter back whenever possible.

‘I am sympathetic to this view,’ he said, and pointed out that the Government had indeed held back on increasing some fees.

For example: service and conservancy charges in town councils run by People’s Action Party MPs, and the price of water.

Some increases, he conceded, are inevitable like health-care costs. He assured Singaporeans the Government will keep the increases as small as possible.

Although Mr Lee dwelt at length on inflation, he ended his Mandarin speech by putting the issue in perspective.

Singapore, he said, cannot focus on the short-term problem of rising costs while neglecting long-term issues like the low birth rate and the challenges posed by the Internet.

‘We have to deal with these problems and achieve a balance between short-term and long-term issues. This is a unique model for Spore. If we can maintain this model, then we can ride out the storms and overcome challenges time and again,’ he said.

Source : Straits Times - 18 Aug 2008

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Singapore wins bid to host RoboCup 2010

Singapore wins bid to host RoboCup 2010

Benefitting sectors include the local robotics, AI industries

By DIONDI TAN

SINGAPORE will play host to the 2010 RoboCup, a robotics soccer competition and the biggest robotics and artificial intelligence event in the world.

After five months of gruelling planning, the bid by the Singapore team was recently accepted by the RoboCup Federation in Suzhou, China, the location of this year’s RoboCup competition.

The four local bodies responsible for organising the event will be Singapore Polytechnic, the Economic Development Board, Science Centre Singapore and the Singapore Tourism Board.

Roughly 3000 participants from over 40 countries are expected to turn up for the event, competing in four major categories - soccer, rescue, junior and @Home - which are further subdivided into leagues.

The stated official goal of the RoboCup project, which was founded in 1993, is to develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can beat the most recent World Cup winner (in compliance with official Fifa rules) by 2050.

Singapore’s hosting of the 2010 RoboCup is expected to give a big boost to the local robotics and artificial intelligence industry, as well as showcase current new developments, said EDB director for new businesses Jonathan Kua.

Other sectors that may benefit include the MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) sector, said Aloysius Arlando, assistant chief executive, business travel & MICE, of the Singapore Tourism Board. Precision engineering is also expected to see growth, Mr Arlando said.

It is hoped that RoboCup will inspire international automation and industrial robotics companies to bring their corporate meetings to Singapore.

RoboCup is not the first robotics competition to be held in Singapore. The Singapore Science Centre has been hosting events such as the National Junior Robotics Competition, where schools compete against each other, and in which 700 teams take part regularly each year.

Source : Business Times - 18 Aug 2008

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Singapore Table tennis trio’s triumph lauded by PM Lee

Singapore Table tennis trio’s triumph lauded by PM Lee

PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong last night praised Singapore’s women’s table tennis team, even as he noted that the Chinese were a very strong team.

Herculean success: (From left) Wang Yuegu, Feng Tianwei and Li Jiawei after winning silver medals at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
‘We’re very proud of them. It’s been a very long time since we have had a medal at the Olympics. Team Singapore, this time there were high hopes and they have not disappointed us.

‘(The paddlers) have done well. They’ve come a long way, put in a lot of effort. Many people have been behind them, not just a few players but the whole team, the support, the training.

‘Also, the encouragement and morale boosting they get from knowing that the whole of Singapore is watching and rooting for them. That makes a lot of difference. My words of encouragement for them - work a lot harder, and we will have more chances in future.’

Source : Business Times - 18 Aug 2008

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Singapore PM Lee paints challenging picture

Singapore PM Lee paints challenging picture

S’pore must tackle long-term problems, not just cost worries

By CHUANG PECK MING

(SINGAPORE) At a time when immediate worries of inflation and foreign workers are on the minds of many Singaporeans, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday turned their attention to more distant challenges. One key issue is Singapore’s low birth rate.

‘In 10 years’ time, we may not remember the inflation in 2008,’ he said in his Chinese speech at his fifth National Day Rally. ‘But we will still be thinking about how we can have more babies, if we don’t take appropriate measures (now).’

Mr Lee did not brush aside current concerns such as inflation, an issue he also addressed in his Malay speech. He reminded Singaporeans that the government had already done a lot to help ease the impact of inflation, and announced that a further growth dividend package would be handed out in October.

This is the third instalment of a $3 billion allocation made in the government’s budget for the current financial year to help Singaporeans deal with the higher cost of living. As a gauge, the total benefits for a three-room Housing and Development Board household could work out to about $5,000.

Still, Mr Lee acknowledged, the perception is that the government has not done enough. He identified three likely reasons for this - the government did not make a big show that it was rendering help; government help was indirect; and some Singaporeans blamed government policies for the inflation.

He said that the government has held back increases such as town council, and service and conservancy charges in PAP wards, as well as water tariffs.

Other hikes such as energy and electronic road pricing (ERP) cannot be helped. Higher ERP is needed to keep traffic flowing, he said.

While he spoke at length about cost of living concerns, Mr Lee said that Singapore cannot ignore long-term problems.

He devoted much time to the population issue in his Chinese speech - a concern which, incidentally, he also raised in his maiden National Day Rally speech in 2004.

Even in soothing the anxiety over the influx of foreign workers and new immigrants - highlighted recently in Lianhe Zaobao - Mr Lee touched on the underlying population problem, saying that Singapore’s problem is not enough workers.

‘Our economy has become more vibrant and diversified because of foreign workers. Without their participation, there will be not enough Singapore workers to grow the economy.’

Singapore’s population problem is starkly registered in the ‘worrying’ numbers Mr Lee presented: 2.1 is the replacement level but Singapore’s total fertility rate (TFR) is only 1.29.

The problem is more acute among the Chinese, whose TFR is 1.14. ‘This means each family is only replacing either the father or mother,’ he said.

Part of the problem is because not enough men and women are getting married today.

According to Mr Lee, men have not changed their mindsets fast enough - and a lingering number still want women to be submissive at a time when women want to be treated as equals. Young women are also not rushing to marry, putting careers above marriage, he said.

In his Malay speech, Mr Lee focused on three major initiatives for the Malay-Muslim community - greater efforts by Mendaki to help dysfunctional families; a mosque upgrading programme; and funding religious education from the Mosque Building and Mendaki Fund.

More details on specific proposals will be announced in the week ahead.

Source : Business Times - 18 Aug 2008

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