Election battle in table tennis: Ex-national player Toh vows to ‘regain glory and restore pride’

SINGAPORE – Keen to halt the “declining performances” of the Singapore national table tennis team, former national paddler Toh Kian Lam has promised to “regain glory and restore pride” to the sport, as his team – which is contesting the upcoming Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) elections – unveiled its athlete-centric approach to address some of its key issues.

Led by president-hopeful Toh, Team 3H’s – the 3 Hs stand for heads, hearts, and hands – nine member team comprises current and former players “with the relevant experience, expertise, and desire to shake up the local table tennis fraternity”, it said in a press release on Saturday (Aug 11).

This is the first time in over a decade that the STTA presidency will be contested, with incumbent Ellen Lee to stand for a third term at the elections, which must be held by the end of September.

Unveiling its four-pronged plan for table tennis, Team 3H noted that there are a number of key issues to resolve. The declining performances of the national team was one such issue, they noted, pointing to the results at major competitions, and the “fact that the world rankings of our naturalised players have gone dramatically south in the past four years”.

At the last Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Team Singapore’s paddlers returned home empty handed for the first time since 2008. The 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games saw India leapfrogging Singapore to claim top spot on the table tennis medal tally for the first time after its paddlers claimed three gold, two silver, and three bronze medals.

Dr Toh also pointed to the attrition rate among junior players, as he said only two out of 18 medalists since the 2012 and 2013 South-east Asia Junior & Cadet Championships remain within the association’s development and competition system. He added that the “loss of talents” had resulted in a “major vacuum” in the current national men’s team.

“The truth is the current STTA’s sport management system will not be able to deliver a truly competent team to the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022,” said Dr Toh, executive director, Local Community Engagement Office, Nanyang Technological University.

The key is to have “a sizable number of highly talented and committed players” in the Under-18, Under-15 and Under-12 levels, and for them to undergo an individualised training development programme, he added.

“Hopefully, we will be able to deliver a strong Singapore team to do well at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and to win a medal at the 2018 Olympic Games,” he said.

If it wins the election, Team 3H plans to organise open selection trials and register up to eight players at each group level to groom them for national teams. It also wants to professionalise the STTA and raise the competency level of the association, as well as develop a table tennis for all programme to get more Singaporeans to play the sport.

It is also calling for a change to the STTA’s constitution, as the team pointed out that grassroots organisations account for 61.4 per cent of the votes among the 44 full members with voting rights, but that most of them have “no meaningful involvement in table tennis-related activities”.

Team 3H member Ow Chee Chung, who is chief executive officer of Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital, added that the STTA’s constitution should be amended such that only organisations or entities which are genuinely and regularly involved in the sport are able to become full members with voting rights.

Team 3H members:

·        Mr Toh Kian Lam, executive director, Local Community Engagement Office, NTU

•       Mr Eric Fong, business development director, Siemens PLM Software

•       Ms Patricia Kim, senior regional credit and collections manager (Apac), Medtronic

•       Mr Ow Chee Chung, chief executive officer, Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital

•       Mr Andrew Tan, managing director, ATT Systems Group

•       Mr Bernard Tan, director, Miharu Food's Singapore

•       Mr Marcus Tan, chief executive officer, AIQ (an artificial intelligence and computer vision company)

•       Mr Terry Tan, managing director, Copytron Technologies

•       Ms Wu Xiaowen, director, Lexton Law Corporation