By Chia Han Keong

SINGAPOREAN sports fans must be masochistic.

Already deprived of a steady diet of world-class triumphs, a bunch of them still refuse to properly celebrate the stunning World Team Championships victory of the Singapore women's table-tennis team.

Wins like this are as rare as the Republic's Olympic-medal wins, which occurred just twice between 1960 and 2008.

Furthermore, the opponents were eight-time defending champions China.

They might be initiating a new generation of world-beating paddlers, but it did not mean that they were any less formidable.

Yet, Singapore still prevailed 3-1 in the series, as Feng Tianwei, Wang Yuegu and Sun Beibei fought their hearts out - Feng battling from behind to win her two singles ties - to upset the favourites.

In a pure sporting sense, Sunday's victory trumped the team's Beijing Olympics silver showing two years ago, when they were thrashed 0-3 by China in the gold-medal match.

Still, some fans are critical that this team is made up of China- born paddlers and featured no Singapore-born player.

These fans will accept nothing less than a world-class sports victory achieved by a local- born athlete - preferably coached by a Singaporean, without foreign input in training.

One Yahoo! Fit To Post user, Raj, wrote: "What's the point? Most athletes are imported into Singapore anyway. It's just a sense of hollow value. Hardly any pride in it."

One Stomp user, juvenile10, also wrote: "It's China who won, not Singapore; China B Team beat China A Team."

Indeed, much of the resentment stems from the perception that Singapore table tennis took the easy route to success by importing foreign talents and neglecting to bring in local hopefuls.

While such points may be valid, it is also worth pointing out that, in this age of globalisation, the notion that a sports team comprising individuals of a "pure" nationality is preferable is getting outdated. So many countries have had foreign talents aid their sporting causes.

France, for instance, won the 1998 World Cup with superstar Zinedine Zidane, who is of Algerian descent.

Germany, three-time World Cup winners, have Brazil-born striker Cacau in their current squad. And top American middle-distance sprinter Bernard Lagat was Kenyan, before becoming an American citizen in 2005.

The Singapore paddlers were still diamonds in the rough when they chose to sacrifice their Chinese nationality to train in and play for Singapore.

Their gutsy hollers and tears after Sunday's triumphs represent their dedication to bringing glory to the nation.

While one may feel blase about an "imported" victory, it is an insult to these athletes' years of hard work to belittle their current feat, for they must have spent most of their career wondering if they could ever overcome a mighty China.

That they did it in Singapore colours is the country's privilege and, perhaps, it is time to accept these foreign talents as 100-per-cent Singaporeans.

They have earned the right.

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