battered image of ittf and olympic table tennis

might be singapore people are rich and don't want to sweat and play tt, they can just cheat. my friend or whatever you are, what should poor countries do who play by the rules, cannot afford equipment and facilities even good foreign countries do? not to talk about  afford competiting for  imported players like singapore. a nation that has never won a medal in tt in say commonwealth games, now showing up in india, last year and sweeping all the medals in sight.

I wish i could be reborn as a china player and play tt for Singapore!

We can't change others, but you can change ourselves!

Convince the government to offer more funding for tt and you sill see the standards increase!

The reason the Chinese dominate TT is because the government makes it a National Sport! So funding in that area ia HUGE!

Look at the funding for:
- Cricket for India, Pakistahn, England hundreds of thousands etc
- Soccer players in clubs get paid millions! And they import their talent!

Heroes are not born, they are built! From lots and lots of government funding!

Maybe they should change it so they don't show which country they are from. Like tennis. They don't care about where they are from. 

I heard that USATT tried to import Wang Hao many years ago ( unfortunately was refused by Wang Hao).  It is unarguable every country want to get the best sportman representing their own country. We don't want to see every TT game US players lose nothing to 11. And we are happy to see Wang Chen beat KIM Kyung Ah.

My two cents :

HMMM manluski do you mean like how germany imported chris kaman to play for them?
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/basketball/columns/story?columnist=sheridan_chris&page=kamanfeature-080817

Your remarks may not seem racist to yourself, but many others have suggested that they are. Maybe you should reanalyze what you are saying, and even if you don't think they are racist maybe adjust them so that other forum members don't think they are too.

I agree with pongpong, jcdi, and hookshot. The people who practice and train harder should be able to play if they are better. The chinese players probably ARE helping develop table tennis in other countries. I do not understand why you think watching a good player vs a good player is boring. I would rather watch two good chinese players play against each other than a good chinese player dominate another player that's not on their skill level.

jcdi wrote: My two cents : I concur that, no matter where they come from, the best players should play. See in Tennis ? Appart the davis cup, which has become a minor event nowadays, the sport has nothing to do with nationalities. By the way, world n�1 comes from Majorca, n�2 from switzerland, n�3 Serbia. All unexpected places with very few players. If there must be 40 chineses amongst the top 50. Let it be. Nothing is here forever. Europe, not long ago has dominated TT, and what has been done once can surely be done twice. Now, and where I understand Manluski point of view is that, including Chinese players in other national teem will not automatically raise these countries level. Let me be more specific. What do you think would happen if you are a young and talented player, very close to enter your national team. You have been working hard, 4-6 hours a day for the last 10 years, and suddenly, just before you join the camp, you are told that a young chinese guy has been given you home country citizenship, he's much stronger than you, sorry, bye bye. Result might be that you quit the sport by frustration. Same for the guys next to you, and so on. Yes, what is the meaning of hard working if never ever you have a chance to be offered a place. The new rules are going in the right direction but they basically not solving the problem. What should ITTF do is skipping national federations. No more national team event. No more limitation regarding the number of players per country in the pro tours, european and world single championships. At first, we shall expect a wide domination of chineses players, but on a long term basis, any player comming from any country will have a chance provided he passes the cut. For that, hard training and skills aren't only "made in China". You can find them everywhere in the world.

Here is my take:

if we are looking at this from the point of view of raising the level of national TT, bringing up more young players etc. then we need to take into account many factors.

Let's say country X buys/"immigrates"/invites a few high-level chinese players - will it be a  positive thing for TT development in this country?

It's hard to answer this question yes/no, because there are many things affecting the result:

a) what is the age/experience of the new players

b) are they actually effectively forcing out the prospective youth from the national team?

c) are they showing good example to the youth, are they actively participating in training, coaching, helping etc.

d) is it a long-term policy of the national TT association or a one-time decision?

e) are they in this country for a long haul, or they will be moving on very soon

and so on. When all these factors and more are taken into account then we can give an informed answer.

Example 1: He Zhi Wen in Spain. He is there for a long long time, well liked, plays for local clubs, helps with training, speaks Spanish, very colorful character, still beats everybody within many many hundred miles etc. Overall impression: positive

Example 2: Gao Jun, David Zhuang in USA. Gao Jun talks about retiring back to China very soon, in the last years (I am not sure what was transpiring before that) both of them don't seem to do much in terms of training or coaching. Overall impression: not so positive. Wang Chen trains with many younger players, iis pretty enthusiastic about her New York club, seems devoted to do more on that front etc. Overall impression: positive.

I am sure that there are many other examples around the world.

So it's kinda hard to argue generally because this is a very case-by-case kind of question, and I think it needs to answered on a case-by-case basis each time. Therefore, there is no need for a general ban - not to mention it's very immoral and goes against basic human rights.

hi JimT

manluski, why do you think the new rules are insufficient? They actually go rather far, as no one over 21 will be allowed to switch countries at all. (That would eliminate future Wang Chens, Gao Juns, and David Zhuangs.) What age limit would you require if you were the ITTF?

amateur,

i agree with you. i don't mean faces or literily the way you are taking it. i want to see as many chinese americans or canadiens if they are developed my the host country's program. they can go and train in china for 1year or 10yrs if they like. these players will come back and bring in their techniques and experience that is what i mean.

This thread has veered WAY off course here and I do suggest that the mods lock it.

The issues should have been about:

(1) Battered image of ITTF (rule changes etc)
(2) Chinese dominance of TT (it's an observation and is NOT an issue)
(3) Imports of better (read: chinese) players

They are mutually exclusive issues IMHO.

While (2) and (3) maybe related in so far as the common element is "Chinese", I resent the fact that China's dominance in TT is painted in a derogatory way or be perceived in that fashion. This applies to any country which exerts any sort of "dominance" in sports really. They've all accomplished these results with sheer toil and sweat and I don't see why their efforts are any less "fair dinkum".

Don't forget that, if you were to look at olympic results, certain sports have always been dominated by certain factions/countries - it doesn't mean that things will never change. See for example judo.

So...either lock this thread or get back on topic which is about the unpredictability of the ITTF in regards to how they perceive the future direction of TT.

Ahhh..."touche" in regards to (1). ITTF has got so many issues lately one is never sure which one's being brought up! :D

In regards to TT being a mercernary sport, I'll add my views:

(1) TT is not the only sport that's engaged in this activity. I suppose the "must win" mentality is very prevalent in many countries. Additionally, the perception of what is proper "representation" of  a country is quite skewed and there's the legal perspective (any citizen of the country can represent...) versus the perspective put forward by the original poster (only locally developed citizen can represent).

(2) I'm in agreement that for countries ex-China to survive in TT, local talent must be developed with proper level of support (funding etc). Going through short-cut by recruiting players, while beneficial in the short-term for the country and the imported players (demand and supply), is detrimental for the development of TT in that country in the long run. The temptation is real: I hazard a guess that it's cheaper to lure an excellent player to come to the country than for that country to develop an equally good player from the local pool from the ground up. If a country takes that approach well then it's coffin in the nail.

(3) I'm not sure how ITTF can deal with this effectively through the implementation of rules. Someone wise once said: "rules are meant to be broken". There'll be people looking for that elusive loophole. Having said that, any action is better than no action at this stage. I want my sport to be recognised as a legitimate activity worthy of olympic quality funding in Australia... :(