Guaranteed Olympic Medals

Interesting times indeed for the two sports teams from the Southeast Asian Peninsula that were sent to the Beijing Olympics. I was hooked on the television watching the 2.30 pm table tennis match between Singapore and South Korea. Four years ago, I witnessed Li Jiawei crashing out in the semis against North Korea and then lost the bronze medal to South Korea in Athens. So, four years on in Beijing, Singapore had another shot to win an Olympic medal which had elude them for 47 years! The last person to win for them was a silver medal from Tan Howe Liang in 1960 for weightlifting. The event the Singapore team is competing in this afternoon was the Team Table-Tennis event. It looks kinda like a new concept to me (I may be wrong)...cos this event combines both singles and doubles together. In addition to the five sets played in one game, there are also 5 games to determine the winner. They look desperate to win this one cos in winning this, they will definitely get a silver medal at least and if they lose, their chance of getting a medal would be 50-50.

In the first game, Feng Tianwei thrashed Dang Ye Seo 3-0 to give Singapore the lead. Then, came the most anticipated match-up between Li Jiawei and her nemesis, Kim Kyung Ah who had beaten her for the bronze in Athens. This was seriously a crazy match! Both women were head to head on each other's toes and they were bouncing off balls each other for long period of times. Not only that, every move from the dictionary of ping pong was thrashed out. It's really fantastic stuff even for a neutral like me to watch the sport. Kim played some kind of unorthodox style in that she creates big bounces and in some way, it's irritating. The game went on for an astounding 56 minutes with the full 5 sets played. In the end, Kim got the better of Li. But for the doubles, Li and her partner Wang swept Kim and her partner away 3-0. Well, the contest would have wrap up if Wang had won her singles match against Dang but nopes, Dang looked like a different player that was just thrashed by Feng. It was close but Dang won 3-0 to force the 5th match to be played between Feng and Park. Feng looked much shakier compared to her stance in the first match and Park is very feisty in that she refuses to back down and fought furiously for every point. It was tight but in the end, it was history in the making when Park made a mistake at game point to send Singapore into the finals and in the process guaranteeing them at least a Silver medal finish. The total match time was calculated to be 3 hrs 13 minutes! Fascinating match indeed where both teams fought head to head to death.

Woah, watching this table tennis match made me realise that the psychological aspect in sports is very important besides physical attributes. Especially in this fast paced game of table tennis, it's definitely pressuring when the player is on a losing streak or in Feng's case, the fate of the entire team is on her shoulders. That's where the coaches come in to motivate the players. Same like in football where the 15 minutes half time break is so crucial in that it can either break or make a team and it is up to coach to be psychologically smart to get the best out of his players. Not only that, the shouts and gestures of the players could give effect to either intimidate the opponents or boost confidence of oneself as exhibited in the ping pong match too. In football, the player goal celebrations just put some shitty feeling to the opponent while in rugby, the All Blacks do the Haka war cry before their matches.

It's a jubilant and glorious moment for Malaysia too as Lee Chong Wei beats Lee Hyub-il in the Semis to secure a delicious match-up against Lin Dan in the Finals. Malaysia too is guaranteed at least a Silver medal finish. Unlike Singapore, Malaysia broke her Olympic medals duck in Barcelona 1992. From 1956 to 1988, Malaysia had no Olympic medals. The Sidek brothers (Rashid and Jalani) won Malaysia's first Olympic medal when they secured a bronze in the badminton doubles. In Atlanta 1996, Cheah Soon Kit and Yap Kim Hock won the silver for Malaysia in the badminton doubles. Rashid Sidek took the bronze in that year too for the men's singles. Lee would be looking forward to win Malaysia's first ever Olympic gold medal but it won't be easy with the home crowd backing Lin Dan. Lee had done very well indeed considering he was under immense pressure in the semis to perform since he was the only Malaysian representative left in the badminton event to achieve an Olympic medal.

As I mentioned, it's interesting in that both Southeast Asian Peninsula buddies would be facing the mighty China players that were backed by the home crowd and both are also playing on Sunday. Now, it remains to be seen if they can break the odds.