Foreign Talent

Watched the nerve-wrecking, nail-biting match between Li Jiawei and Kim Hyang Mi this afternoon. Pity that Jiawei lost after a 3-1 lead. What I found intriguing, but not so surprising on hindsight, was that the (china) chinese supporters in the background, who were there for the previous semi-final match, were cheering for the North Korean girl. So either Communist blood runs deep, or they saw Jiawei as a defector, as someone who betrayed their country by settling in Singapore. It is interesting how a lot of players in the badminton and table tennis circuits originate from China, but left probably because they could not make it to the first team in China, and preferred to take their chances in a foreign land, where they would be the top players and be able to keep their prize money etc. I wonder how players like Jiawei feel when they are playing against players from China. Ashamed? Vengeful? Or simply indifferent?

Or maybe the Chinese crowd rooted for Kim just because Jiawei beat Wang Nan the previous day.

Bekele of Ethopia won the Men's 10000m with an Olympic record of 27:05:10, with a last lap of 53.02. That is simply ridiculous, considering Singapore's 400m record is 47.4 - the crazy guy ran his final lap just 6 secs slower than the Singapore record for 400m, despite having run 9.6km before that. He even managed to lap some competitors - in the Olympics no less! Even more amazing is that Bekele also holds the world record, which is 26:20:31, which is 45 seconds faster than the Olympic record. Madness.