Sleepless in Shanghai

Here I am in Shanghai with the Philippine team. In 8 hours, the World Table Tennis Championships will begin. I am extremely excited. I hopped on the complimentary shuttle bus (on the way to my hotel), and the first player I actually saw as we approached Shanghai Gymnasium was JO Waldner w/ the rest of the Swedish team in their blue and yellow outfits. I had expected Waldner to have a big entourage here in China (after all, he is bigger than Michael Jordan here), but not so. Maybe we’ll actually get to meet some members of the Swedish team. In short order, I spotted JM Saive of Belgium, Wang Hao of China (the 2004 Olympic silver medalist), then Chuang Chi-Yuan of Taiwan.

The players, on the other hand, are decidedly low-key about the whole thing. I was shocked to learn to learn that it was only last night (Thursday night) when the players learned for sure whether the trip was on or not. Apparently there has been some problem with getting funding for the trip from the Philippine Sports Commission and the First Gentleman’s Foundation. I do not who is at fault for this; but I think it’s extremely hard for a player to focus on his game and his competition with this sort of uncertainty, even up till the day just before the first match.

Two months ago, it had been announced that 5 men and 5 women would be sent to Shanghai to join the WTTC and then proceed to stay in China for two months to train. So they’ve been training like hell since then, working out 3 hours in the morning & 3 hours in the afternoon. Last week, it was announced that the plan to train in China for 2 months had been scuttled. Then, as of yesterday, the players told me that there was only funding for 3 men and 3 women; and that the whole trip was in danger of being cancelled. In the end, just a few hours before today’s flight, a compromise was reached: all the players would be able to fly, if they were willing to give up their per diem allowance. There is a lot of politics involved; and that’s really unfortunate.

The competition on the other hand, have been in China for a week. They’ve been training, acclimatizing, getting used to the tables and the lighting. We, on the other hand, arrived at our hotels at 10 pm, had dinner, and were in bed by about 1230 pm. If they want to be ready to play by 9 am, then they’ll need to have breakfast by 730 am. That’s not exactly a great way to prepare for a major tournament.

Sometimes in life, it isn’t whether you win that counts, but how hard you strive against unsurmountable odds. The players who will be competing tomorrow know they don’t have a shred of a chance. But I know they will go all out tomorrow. And that’s what really counts. God help them.