I was reading Low Lin Fhoong’s article on ‘Olympic Report Card – No Excuses, SailingSailing; Chef-de-mission Tan feels NSA should own up after poor performance in Qingdao’ (Sports Section, Today, Wednesday, 17 September 2008). I want to share my views about Dr Tan Eng Liang’s comments.

I know that Dr Tan was displease with SingaporeSailing’s report but being a sailor myself, I know we faces challenges in our physical make-up, experience and luck in the sport. Unlike those who were competing in a controlled environment, our sailors had no control over wind, wave and current at the sailing arena. These create new dimensions in the sport and the sailors had to work hard to win given these constraints. While we could discount these as excuses but they are there and should be acknowledged, and I think this was what the sports association attempted to do.

By saying ‘but if you come in 42 out of 43, what is there to argue?’ he has discounted the years of efforts these sailors and SingaporeSailing have given to Singapore in bringing sailing to where it is today.

Dr Tan should have checked the time the 42^nd boat had taken to cross the finishing line at each race before making that remark. Maybe he was elated with what he brought back for Singapore that he had forgotten himself. As Chef-de-mission, Tan has to exercise extreme care in the words he used to avoid sending the wrong messages to the public and hurt those who had worked very hard to represent Singapore.

In this aspect, I am very pleased and gratified with what has happened in the sailing community. Each year, hundreds of sailors, from as young as 8, learn sailing from their school and at their sailing clubs. They are grouped into squads with dedicated coaches working with them on their techniques. Regularly, there are in-house races and national competitions where they hone their skills and measure themselves with their peers. SingaporeSailing maintains a table of national ranking for all competing sailors, and the top few get to join the national team for further development. We work our way up, and our coaches and clubs have tirelessly providing and facilitating our progression.

In this home grown thriving and competitive environment, we have answers to the question of who are going to succeed the current patch Olympian sailors when they retire.

Yes, I am disappointed with the performance of our sailors, unlike the biggest winner in this year’s Olympic, I am very proud of them. Our peddlers deserved to be applauded for bringing in the medals but this is transactional in nature because it was set up this way when they came to Singapore. This has nothing to do with whether they are locals or otherwise. It is about the nature of the agreement and the corresponding national expectations they produce..

The outcome has proven that this arrangement does provide good returns. However, it has long term impact. We do not who are going to succeed these peddlers in the future. I will be vexed if their NSA brings in another batch of imported players at the expense of sacrificing talents that could be found in the local community.

It is good to give each sportsman and sports association have performance indicators, and I agree that what gets measured gets done but it is more important that they are doing the right things when meeting these national expectations. I am seeing that the sailing community is doing the right things. I definitely prefer we do not win any medals and do the right things than to do the wrong things in order to bluff ourselves of our sporting power.

Our sailors were called on to represent Singapore at the Games. They had considered and took on the challenge. This was an agreement they made with their sporting community and the nation. They could choose not to but they did not and they do it out of their love for the sport. This is most honorable. When they do not perform as expected, they and their sports association are chilled. There is something very wrong in this equation. I hope that in the process of hunting the witch we do not end up frightening aspiring sportsmen and women from taking up the challenge for representing the country called Singapore.

I hope the next Olympic Chef-de-mission will be more enlightened when he is preparing his report after the 2012's Game.