Foreign talent in Singapore sport : time to end it?

• Main Author: Goh, Yi Long
• Other Authors: Nicholas Giles Aplin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66561
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Abstract Importing foreign talent is a scheme introduced by Singapore Table Tennis Association to boost the local sporting standards in 1993. Since then, Singapore Table Tennis had achieved commendable results and two of the most prominent ones were ending Singapore Olympic medals drought in 2008 Beijing Olympics when the Women’s Team attained a Silver medal. The other one was in 2010 Moscow World Championship when the Women’s Team beat China, powerhouse of Table Tennis in the finals and grasp their first ever World Championships title. Things were looking good for Table Tennis until the retirement of a few key players. In recent years, there has been several issues arising and with the lack of good results as before, Singaporean starts to take a different approach of having foreign talent scheme. In this essay, the advantages and disadvantages of having the foreign talent scheme will be discussed, it will also include comparison of the running of Table Tennis Association with other National Sports Association and also the opinion of a few significant people through interviews. Four participants will be selected to go through the interviews and they are selected based on personal experience playing the sports as ex-national team player or employees working in Singapore Table Tennis Association.