GAO Ning, the player in the centre of the Singapore table tennis controversy, yesterday slammed the two men he felt were responsible for his sour Beijing Olympics experience.

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We have coaches, head coach, technical director, manager and now a new CEO ..... and what more, a CFO, COO, HR director?

In China there is always a lot of perception that the state interfere too much into sports and have stunted the growth of basket ball and football.

It is clear that some players were affected and was not able to overcome rage and anger in 2008, not sure if these players can overcome rage and anger and feeling of being 3rd class in 2012.

Is that the motive for his loss? No disrespect to Gao but did he purposely lose the game so that ppl will come to know that the officials did not assign him a coach? If he had won the game without a coach, the issue wouldn't have been so big. Or was it really total demoralisation that led him to play so badly? I really can't believe seeing someone playing at such a high level tournament serving into the net 4 times continuously!

Anyhow, I think he has the right to blame those parties. Who on earth would like to be discriminated and treated that way? Especially after tons of sweat lost during years of tough training.

He cried when he lost the match, he cried when reporter interview him when he back to Singapore. He is a man, he is olympian, he is world no 12, why is he so weak mentally? Yes, he felt betrayed by his coaches, but being an olympian at such high level, I would expect him to handle himself better rather than behaving like a wimp. All these while, he has blamed everyone for losing the match except for himself. Yes, the fault may lies with the coaches, but has he ever look back on how he gave up the match without trying? I have no respects to him at all.

Though it may not be possibly fair for him to play without a coach but why only blamed the team manager and head coach, what about the coach who fell ill and only informed others about this 1 hour before the match as reported?

Also, why he lost so badly 4-0 (11-6, 14-12, 11-4, 11-7) to a much lower ranked player. If you noticed, he actually played better in the 2nd set as compared to the 1st i.e. played better without any tactical advice, so I don’t really understand what he is really complaining about?

On another note, the only women player who lost all her singles matches also complained in last night’s Chinese TV news, she complained about the team manager and coach. But the other 2 women players did not complained; actually one of them spoke positively about the team manager.

So, it seemed only those who lost before the semi-final stage is complaining.

Gao Ning should not give excuses or blame anyone for his poor performance.
He should focus on how he can learn from this bad experience. The saying goes,'Only losers blame everyone else but themselves'.

When Mr Gao lost, he must concede that he was not as good as his opponent. He should just blame himself. The coach, if he was present, could not have held his hand to win the matches.

The President of STTA also acted in haste. Apparently the STTA is a one woman autocratic organisation. Did she consult with her board of directors and other relevant 'experts' before announcing that Mr Antony Lee's services were not required. Were there opportunities for Mr Lee to explain the situation and circumstances? Perhaps the President of STTA should have been at the Games and be held responsible for the poor performance of Mr Gao.

It is most regrettable that the poor performance of some of our highly prized (and priced) imports elicited such an ungracious response from STTA. I wish Mr Antony Lee well.

I sympathised with Gao Ning and hope that STTA will learn from the mistakes and rectify the situation after the enquiry. I certainly hope that Gao Ning will not give up and quit and may this incident spur him on to do better for Singapore in London 2012. 30 yrs old is still young, his opponent Tan Ruiwu is certainly older than him and yet he is still playing for Croatia. Let's move on and work towards London 2012.

training harder on skills and game plan is not enough for him, what he need is stronger mental abilities. If he continue to be a wimp, I dont think STTA should waste more money & resources training him. If natalie du toit can complete 10km open water swim event with 1 leg, finishing 16th out of 24 world class swimmers, what is the problem competing with lower ranked player without babysitter. Weak weak weak...

It seems that the president, managers and players are using the media to air their strategy and grievances and I'm not sure if this is due to design or naivity. The press seems to be having a field day. This report on what Gao Ning has revealed to the press is quite an eye opener. Accurately or not, classifying himself as a 3rd class citizen in view of the events he has experienced means that his own strategy was not aligned to the Team's. How can we ever achieve gold? I hope this should open the eyes of the Singapore administration team in adopting new or amended policies and strategies going forward in future Games, "One Dream, One Team"? Our players need to be much stronger mentally and do their best when the going gets tough.