Australia's Miao Miao has defended the spread of Chinese-born players
to the national teams of other countries after collecting a silver
medal in the women's doubles alongside veteran Jian Lay.
The Australian duo fell 11-5, 8-11, 11-8, 11-5 to Singapore's
Tianwei Feng and Mengyu Yu in Saturday's gold medal match on the final
day of table tennis competition at Glasgow's Scotstoun Sports Complex
On Friday, the nine-time Australian men's singles champion
William Henzell had criticised Singapore
for loading their team with Chinese-born players after crashing out of
the Commonwealth Games quarter-finals, arguing it was "not in the spirit
of the Games".
The silver-medal winning Australian women's doubles pair were both
born in China, relocating to Australia in the 1990s, and Miao disagreed
with the stance taken by Henzell.
The 33-year-old said the diaspora of Chinese-born players
representing other countries was explained by the overwhelming strength
of the sport in her nation of origin, and believes they deserved the
chance to feature internationally if they could not break into the
Chinese team.
"There are lots of good players and not many chances to play
at international level, so if they have a chance to play for another
country I think it's good for them," Miao said. "They're training so
many years and they want to show their results in the competition. So if
they have a chance, why not?
"I think maybe some players are not so happy with it. But in China
there are millions of people playing table tennis and to be in the
Chinese national team, it's only a few players. Everyone is training so
hard, so they should have a chance to present themselves."
Miao spent four years living in Poland, and played for the
Polish national team, before moving to Australia in 1997 and
representing her adopted country at four Olympics and now four
Commonwealth Games.
Her partner Lay, also in her fourth Commonwealth Games at the
age of 41, arrived in 1994, while their Singaporean conquerors on
Saturday were also both born in China.
"In Australia and the Oceania countries, less people play table
tennis compared to China. In China there are too many, so the
competition is very high," Miao said. "Some people say it's as hard to
win the Chinese national championships as the world championships, which
is true."
Miao and Lay, who had earlier taken bronze in the women's
team event, won the second game in the gold medal playoff but were
overpowered in four games.
It was no shame to go down to the Singaporean pairing,
though. For Feng, the singles champion here, it was a third gold medal
of these Games while for singles silver medallist Yu it was a second
gold in Glasgow.
Feng is ranked fifth in the world, and Yu 18th, and they were
always going to be the most difficult of assignments for the
Australians.
"We are really happy with our result," Miao said. "The
Singapore players are really tough. They are top players in the world,
they've been training for years and years and they are professional
players. They have lots of opportunities to train overseas and compete
at the international level which we do not as much.
"We just tried to play our best, and we're happy with that."
Australia's Miao Miao has defended the spread of Chinese-born players
to the national teams of other countries after collecting a silver
medal in the women's doubles alongside veteran Jian Lay.
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