. Perhaps more Chinese girls want to take up Tennis now (to follow Li Na's achievement/accomplishment). http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/93949-Professional-Players-going-Professional .
IMHO,the Junior level is never a good indication of a country's overall strength,esp at the adult level. Take Table-Tennis,for example,China don't often win at the junior level but at the senior level they are totally dominating, in the MS,China has the equivalent of not just one Lin Dan. Besides,it's common knowledge that at junior age (usually from as young as 12 to as old as 18 perhaps for some sports), the players are just starting out,growing and developing their game, their potential and talents are far from being realized;that's why there isn't one country that dominates at junior level, with the championship won by various or a few countries. Say, TT where Japanese youngster Koki Niwa frequently beats his Chinese rivals, and he's now playing at the senior level where the world top 4 are all Chinese. Another example is Chess,where previously even a young 12-yr-old Hungarian girl,Judit Polgar, was number 1 for many years, not the former Soviet Union at that time; then you also have 15-yr-old American,Bobby Fischer, not long ago it was Indian youngster, Vishy Anand, recently it was Norwegian,Magnus Carlsen. Personally,I won't place too much emphasis on the Junior level as an accurate indication of Senior strength. How often do you have a junior winning the World Title? It happens but rarely. .
Are you satisfied or do you want to be known as World Junior Champion or simply World Champion in which case China wins most of it? China may have,owing to her population base,practically more junior players than any other country but still doesn't often win the world junior title,is that a problem for China? I don't think so,it's just a statistical probability matter. As I've said,all the junior players are starting out in their playing career, they are still learning,training,growing,developing and realizing their potential which require a good number of years and experience to reach their best,then only it really begins to count. To me,the junior level offers the nation's coaches/trainers the opportunity to talent-spot future world beaters;indeed, I've always believed Tai TY and Inthanon R as two outstanding examples,just that I cannot deny the fact that LXR, who began at about the same time albeit at an older age, has already just stepped onto the world's highest stage,so it's not just the age factor but,more importantly,the natural talent and the resources available to nurture it.
Now that you mentioned it again, could you confirm whether the SIN Team members previously from China really represented and played for CHN? Before that shock victory by SIN nobody expected it to win because "China was never defeated for a long time and China was invincible". It doesn't matter whether CHN chose to use their young players or not because no other country has players capable of beating China, so they think...
singapore's players are imports from china. its better to develop your own players cuz once they retire, gonna have to fill out the spot. there are always upsets cuz its part of sports.
Agree with you to some extent. However in Singapore's case it is a little different. Because of our small population our talent pool is limited and there are other competing interests. Unlike say bowling or sailing, where we have a much greater interest with the young, table tennis has not been popular in our schools. But the authorities think that just as in badminton, Asians are better suited for TT and that's why TT was included in our only Sports School. So to generate greater interest and remain connected to the sports world we resort to importing foreign talents in sports where we thought we are lacking, some of these imports are just in their early teens, particularly our Women's badminton team, and try to develop them into champions. Of course our TT Women's Team created a great deal of interest and catapulted tiny Singapore into the world's sports map when they became World Champions two years ago and secured for us an Olympic silver medal after almost half a century. And now our TT standard is higher and we even have two local born boys who made it to the Men's World Championships team. In other words our foreign imports help to raise the local standards as was originally intended. It doesn't mean we will continue to import forever. When our locals are good enough to take over, they will be the ones to represent SIN. It is happening albeit slowly. So Singapore has taken a different route in some sports in order to short cut the process an remain useful as an active participant in the sports world. Is this really wrong or another ingenious approach to solving problems?
Well, CHN has been dominating Junior level and CHN is still dominating Senior level. Different fate goes with INA. INA were always behind at Junior level, but somehow still win several major tournaments (OG, WC). So, I still believe it's better to start with Junior achievement as indication for future trend of country strength, although may be not current country overall strength. Simple, CHN is much better from INA at least for last 10 years, indicated at Junior level, and strengthen at Senior level.
I find it completely bizarre that I'm watching a Chinese broadcast in Mandarin of the Australian Open, whilst sitting here in Melbourne.
http://www.badmintonlink.com/Watch-Badminton-Live-Stream/2012_Yonex_Australian_Open i couldn't watch the above. anyone else got something working?
