rejang said:
Shhhhhhhhh.....................don't mention that to S'pore (and the Dutch)
But one must admit that Susilo only starts to become a mature Grand Prix-level player after living for a few years in S'pore & decided to play professional badminton. I think S'pore can clearly claim Susilo to be one of its own.
Mia.........she's already a top player before moving to Holland.
Thanks rejang
I think your analysis is correct.
It appears that Ronald came to Singapore in 1993 to study in ACS (one of Singapore's more popular schools), that would be when he was about 14 years old since he is now 24. When he was in Jakarta, apparently he was from the same well known badminton club as Susi Susanti and Mia Audina.
Coincidentally, Mia is also 24 and won this J Open Women's Singles title. But Mia represented Indonesia when she was only 16 and when Susi retired, high hopes were on her to replace Susi. But as events turned out, Mia is now representing the Netherlands but I'm not sure whether she is now a Dutch citizen. I doubt so though.
Ronald, on the other hand, has never represented Indonesia in any of the international tournaments as he was too young and less skilful then and there were many better players in Indonesia. When he finished his secondary education in 1998, he was absorbed into the SBA professional training scheme and I must say the SBA has never lost sight of promoting the game here and trying hard to produce better players to represent the country. Of course, since we have no base and the local talented young people were more interested in the paper chase for a better career, the SBA had to start off by importing talented badminton players who are considered not good enough by their own countries. So we imported mainly teenage girls from China, who are now producing results, and adult players from Indonesia. So far, very few of the Indonesian imports have really proved themselves and many of their contracts were not renewed.
The SBA have invested a lot on these professional players, not only providing them the training with good coaches but also sending overseas for international tournaments. Ronald has long last justified the investments and will now be a very good role model for our youngsters who aspire to represent Singapore. Our Sport School should produce some results in 4 four years' time.
Ronald is special and he is indeed a Singapore citizen already and we hope he can win a medal at the Olympics. He is a determined young man and he works hard to achieve his objective.
