AGONISINGLY CLOSE

When paddler Jing Junhong moved from China to Singapore in 1991, the table tennis scene here was in a pitiful state. The sport was played by students and cubicle dwellers, and she couldn’t scrounge up enough competitive players to practise more than three hours a day.

Undeterred, she sought out overseas competitions as her own private training grounds. “If you got injured overseas, you swallowed your pride. You would have to look for other teams’ specialists to help you,” she recalls.

In 1992, her dogged determination took her to a tournament in Vietnam. Even though she was there just to make up the numbers, she won the Women’s Singles title — and would go on to claim her spot at the top for the next three years.

She stunned the crowds at the 1993 World Championships in Sweden where she beat then-world No. 1 and Olympic reigning champion, China’s Deng Yaping, in the second round. After she received her citizenship in 1994, Junhong became Singapore’s first table tennis representative at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, crashing out before the quarter finals.

But it was her performances at the 2000 Sydney Olympics which would forever change the narrative of Singapore table tennis. She had less than a month of rigorous training to prepare for the competition due to the Republic’s then-fitful commitment to the sport. Even so, she breezed through the Women’s Singles preliminary rounds before her big win in the quarter finals over Romania’s Mihaela Steff.

As the nation watched, transfixed, she became the first Singaporean to fight for a medal in the Olympics since weightlifer Tan Howe Liang’s silver in Rome in 1960. Although she lost to China’s Li Ju in the semi-finals, she still had a chance for bronze. But then Taiwan’s Chen Jing proved too strong.

This meant Junhong had to settle for fourth place — behind bronze medallist Chen while China’s Wang Nan and Li Ju clinched gold and silver respectively. “It was heartbreaking,” she recalls quietly. “But it made people realise that if we got so close, if we did things a little better, we would get there.”

By 2004, when she made it to the third round of the Athens Olympics, she knew it was time to move on. A new generation of paddlers had begun to make their mark with the help of a more rigorous training system. In 2008, they triumphed with a Women’s Team silver medal at the Beijing Olympics, creating a new milestone in Singapore. On her part, the three-time Sportswoman of the Year moved into coaching and became head coach of the national women’s team in 2013.

Looking back at her career, she recalls a moment during the 1992 Vietnam competition — the battle that began her string of wins. Then a searing pain burned through her arm halfway through the final match. Doctors told her that she had damaged a muscle. She could play again only after six months, if she played at all. But she bulldozed her way — through the pain and agony.

This single-mindedness to succeed is a trait she hopes will be inherited by her athletes. A fine example, she endured much, even at her lowest point which was also her highest point — the day she lost to Chen Jing and just missed the much-coveted Olympic medal.