1st SG U18 to rank top in ITTF ranking

[Tianmo]

Our young guns seem to be reporting many good news lately. 

So who say small country small population cannot produce great athletes? Its a matter of are we willing to put in the effort, resources, and patience to see they grow!!!

Are we willing to give them the support as a society, be it families, friends, gov, and most importantly the schools!!!.

This young man is going to SEA games end of the year, at a young age of 17, one of the very young ones to be playing at the SEA games. Lets all wish him well!!!

Bring back proud Koen!!!! 

https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/table-tennis-koen-pang-moves-to-no-1-in-the-under-18-boys-world-ranking

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Tianmo

[Spring]

Good to hear another up and coming local sportsman esp so in TT as we had so many imported players previously. Whilst I'm not against imported players per se, it would have been better if we had a better mix with local born as well but TT never seemed to be able to achieve this till recently so it's good to hear the men's team is now almost all local born which was the intention when the imports were first introduced ie to improve the standard of the local borns.

At the risk of being branded as a broken record, alas I fear NS would once again put paid to Koen's hopes of progressing as he will likely regress during his 1.5+yrs stint. Sorry to be the one pouring cold water on an otherwise good news thread

 

[Tianmo]

31 minutes ago, Spring said:

Good to hear another up and coming local sportsman esp so in TT as we had so many imported players previously. Whilst I'm not against imported players per se, it would have been better if we had a better mix with local born as well but TT never seemed to be able to achieve this till recently so it's good to hear the men's team is now almost all local born which was the intention when the imports were first introduced ie to improve the standard of the local borns.

At the risk of being branded as a broken record, alas I fear NS would once again put paid to Koen's hopes of progressing as he will likely regress during his 1.5+yrs stint. Sorry to be the one pouring cold water on an otherwise good news thread

 

Actually for individual sports, it is easier to work ard NS than team sports. Also it depends if you are training locally or training overseas, any proven results, any supporting from your sports governing body, etc. MINDEF does have options for those high performance athletes, but you will still need to serve. (I know you are referring to the Ben football case, but that case is quite different, even I dont support).

Even during my time, which was 30 yrs ago, I have enlistee in my unit posted  out or attached out for games. My own buddy, who was a national hockey player was attached out most of the 2 years he was enlisted. We hardly see him in camp, but he ROD with us. There was also a footballer (goal keeper) in my company, he was posted out to a 9-5 vocation right after BMT, and he gets to train with the team locally. I think he played for SAFFC tho. 

C kunalan did mention in one of his interview lately, that the sports bodies in SG have ways to help with NS for high performance athletes in that they can train and serve the national at the same time, but the athletes themselves must be willing to step forward and work together.

There are ways to work things out, but there will be hard work and some compromise to adjust to. Seriously,  MINDEF is not all shut and NS is not something we want to discourage,  there is a mid point to meet. 

I am speaking from a point where I have a young high performance athlete aiming for youth Olympics in 2022, and leading up to other games. We are already in the findings and discussing if he sld go OCS or train during NS instead, but we are preparing to have him enlist as early as he can. Get  it out of the way asap, so that he can concentrate on the actual training. 

[Beregond]

31 minutes ago, Tianmo said:

 

There are ways to work things out, but there will be hard work and some compromise to adjust to. Seriously,  MINDEF is not all shut and NS is not something we want to discourage,  there is a mid point to meet. 

I

Exactly,  mindef compromise alot for our top sportsman.

but it work both way, the sportman himself confirm need compromise also and make some sacrifice .

i will cheer for pang and chase his game even if he didnt win any thing,

he just need to play and represent sg, i think that is more then enough.

medal is not everything

[Lala81]

48 minutes ago, Tianmo said:

I am speaking from a point where I have a young high performance athlete aiming for youth Olympics in 2022, and leading up to other games. We are already in the findings and discussing if he sld go OCS or train during NS instead, but we are preparing to have him enlist as early as he can. Get  it out of the way asap, so that he can concentrate on the actual training.

wah i thought your son only wanted to bring back gold medal for his school. haha now want to do YOG liao ar. 

[Spring]

30 minutes ago, Tianmo said:

Actually for individual sports, it is easier to work ard NS than team sports. Also it depends if you are training locally or training overseas, any proven results, any supporting from your sports governing body, etc. MINDEF does have options for those high performance athletes, but you will still need to serve. (I know you are referring to the Ben football case, but that case is quite different, even I dont support).

Even during my time, which was 30 yrs ago, I have enlistee in my unit posted  out or attached out for games. My own buddy, who was a national hockey player was attached out most of the 2 years he was enlisted. We hardly see him in camp, but he ROD with us. There was also a footballer (goal keeper) in my company, he was posted out to a 9-5 vocation right after BMT, and he gets to train with the team locally. I think he played for SAFFC tho. 

C kunalan did mention in one of his interview lately, that the sports bodies in SG have ways to help with NS for high performance athletes in that they can train and serve the national at the same time, but the athletes themselves must be willing to step forward and work together.

There are ways to work things out, but there will be hard work and some compromise to adjust to. Seriously,  MINDEF is not all shut and NS is not something we want to discourage,  there is a mid point to meet. 

I am speaking from a point where I have a young high performance athlete aiming for youth Olympics in 2022, and leading up to other games. We are already in the findings and discussing if he sld go OCS or train during NS instead, but we are preparing to have him enlist as early as he can. Get  it out of the way asap, so that he can concentrate on the actual training. 

For football, it used to be the army NS guys play for SAFFC whilst the police NS guys play for Home United and like u mentioned it worked to a certain extent though I still feel its not the same as being attached to a professional club but Ok at least there was some compromise. For some reason and this has also been mentioned in the papers, NS boys playing in the SPL has now more or less stopped as Warriors and Home United are now full fledged football clubs, no more an outlet for NS boys and so we lose our footballers.

Yes team sports seem to get the short end of the straw as I suppose logistically it is harder to accommodate a team vs an individual and whilst I also support the concept of NS in general, I still feel exceptions are needed to be made for talented sportsmen. After all, it's about deferment and not exemption from NS.

We all have our opinions on how to handle this cos I'm more in favour of pushing the sportsman's talents to see how far he can go and then serve NS and not the other way round. I dare say Fandi's 2 sons have lost valuable time and are now behind their peers in terms of development esp Ihksan who in my opinion is the more talented of the 2 and being a striker, exposure to a fully professional league and higher standard of play would enable him to hone his skills earlier, not to mention the mindset, diet etc. Just my 2 cents.......

[Tianmo]

26 minutes ago, Beregond said:

Exactly,  mindef compromise alot for our top sportsman.

but it work both way, the sportman himself confirm need compromise also and make some sacrifice .

i will cheer for pang and chase his game even if he didnt win any thing,

he just need to play and represent sg, i think that is more then enough.

medal is not everything

Yah, MINDEF need to be seen to be fair to everyone, so we first have to help them to help us. Its a 2 way thing, we ourselves have to find all the valid reasons and present to them so that they can plug those numbers in to help us.

And there are so many athletes in SG who get enlisted each year, everyone who does a sports has some form of dream and wants to train hard for it, so end of the day is still by merit, otherwise no man will be serving NS liao. This is something we have to learn to accept. 

Yah, I am also cheering for him, winning is a bonus, the fact that we can produce some young  top players is already a comfort.  very encouraging and hopefully can motivate more talented young kids  to work hard...

The other one to look out for is Josh Chua. He is 18 this year and rank 26, also not fully develop yet, who knows may launch a surprise late growth...

 

 

 

[Tianmo]

27 minutes ago, Lala81 said:

wah i thought your son only wanted to bring back gold medal for his school. haha now want to do YOG liao ar. 

When I was training him last year, that was our aim. We were motivated to prove it to the school, and I had to prove it to the school.  After NSGs, I kind of relax after the podium finish, and leave him to his current coach. I took it as just anther CCA and started to slowly move away, now I am almost totally stand down. 

It is his current coach who gave him the idea to work towards YOG. In fact they work very closely together and had plans all plan out for his games. YOG is once every 4 years, so it is a once a lifetime kind of race for the youth, and in 2022 he will be 17, just nice cut off age for YOG. 

Anyway, he and his coach are now working very hard to qualify for SEA youth in April 2020 first, and we think he stands a good chance to be one of the youngest to compete in SEA youth. Likely cannot win, but good experience leading to another SEA youth in 2022 and YOG 2022.  

So I let them go work it out, good they have a target to train towards to..

 

[Lala81]

Yeah always have a target to aim for. Even miss the stars, at least can hit the moon lol 

[Tianmo]

6 minutes ago, Lala81 said:

Yeah always have a target to aim for. Even miss the stars, at least can hit the moon lol 

yah, he gets so excited every time he gotten some fault fixed, and will show me videos of his training.

His coach thinks he is born for this event, and wants to be coach to a new champion, so they both have big goals and working very hard towards it. Sometime I feel his coach cares alot more for him than me in term of his racing career. 

He just shared with me their plans up to 2023, and they aiming at setting new national youth and junior records, with SEA youth and YOG the final aim before NS. I was like, well Ok work for it, but remember you get no race if your school work slacks....

 

 

[Beregond]

40 minutes ago, Tianmo said:

 

 

those really got potential de sportman  i feel should go ns asap.

as young as possible, finish it during training period. come out only 20, 

then wont effect the completeion or  match

if any changes, maybe let them enlist as early as 17 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Beregond

[Lala81]

7 minutes ago, Beregond said:

those really got potential de sportman  i feel should go ns asap.

as young as possible, finish it during training period. come out only 20, 

then wont effect the completeion or  match

if any changes, maybe let them enlist as early as 17 

? no need finish school first meh. Most kids school until 19+ nowadays.

[Beregond]

Just now, Lala81 said:

? no need finish school first meh. Most kids school until 19+ nowadays.

if u are chasing sport, really national or world standard, still need study meh .

every thing push behind liao. 

thats why to be a sportman /woman parents support is the most critical issue.

 

[Lala81]

5 minutes ago, Beregond said:

if u are chasing sport, really national or world standard, still need study meh .

every thing push behind liao. 

thats why to be a sportman /woman parents support is the most critical issue.

Hmm true. Doubt parents will let them though. Since even ITE/Poly go in when they are 19-20.

The only ones who enlist so early are those with only O or N levels which are very few nowadays.

 

 

[Tianmo]

14 minutes ago, Beregond said:

those really got potential de sportman  i feel should go ns asap.

as young as possible, finish it during training period. come out only 20, 

then wont effect the completeion or  match

if any changes, maybe let them enlist as early as 17 

yup, we agree with your points also, get it out of the way asap. It is easier to defer reservist than to defer NS, and he will have a "life time" to defer reservist, but only up to 26 for NS.  

In fact we are exploring the option of early enlistment after O levels instead, but will have to see how things go from here first. 

 

[Nutty]

Nice to see local sportsmen doing well. Beats winning gold medals thru importing players.

[Nutty]

2 minutes ago, Tianmo said:

yup, we agree with your points also, get it out of the way asap. It is easier to defer reservist than to defer NS, and he will have a "life time" to defer reservist, but only up to 26 for NS.  

In fact we are exploring the option of early enlistment after O levels instead, but will have to see how things go from here first. 

 

What sport is your son involved in ah?

[Lala81]

8 minutes ago, Nutty said:

What sport is your son involved in ah?

run run away ah...