Agree with tony well said there. Most parts of the article are irrelevant to the real issue.
The only fact that is worth worrying is this paragraph
Players notice when recently transferred athletes appear interested only in furthering their own careers, or fail to exceed some ambiguous threshold of enthusiasm about their new homes, or spend most of their time in their home countries.
Most federations select the easy way which is wrong for the growth of TT in general. And the article writer dont know which questions to ask in order to "solve" the "issue"
Ni xia lian for example is in luxemburg since 1991 according to wikipedia. In the article it is stated that she was hired mostly to coach but then it was clear she was better then everyone so she still represents luxemburg.
Nobody cant know for a fact what luxemburg has done for ni xia lian and ni xia lian for luxemburg. except ni xia lian and the people governing the tt federation
But my question (which also applies to other chinese in western countries, not only in the above example) is :
Did li xia nian (chinese born representing a western country) and the luxemburg TT federation (please place any western federation) cooperate/worked together (all these 25(?) years) in order to grow TT in luxemburg (produce players/talents,popularize the game) or do they just take advantage of each other to fulfil their own personal goals??
For those who didnt read dima's recent interview, the budget for TT in germany is severely reduced if they dont bring medals in olympics. I know for a fact that this policy is the same in many EU countries in many different sports. Olympics bring popularity/fame, fame brings sponsors= money
So instead of "blaming" the chinese for their domination in many aspects of the game, even competitiveness among western born players vs chinese trained players (born chinese is not even an issue, ariel hsing and lily zhang are 100% americans regarding their nurture, way of life, education, personality, mentality & even tt training), maybe they should try to learn a thing or two and try to emulate the parts of chinese training programs that can be emulated in the western way of life, because western kids simply cannot practice 8 hours a day like the chinese do
Western countries simply cannot copy (for various reasons) what mao zedong did for table tennis & china in the 50's but they can sure get some inspiration/ideas on how to grow TT in the long term...but do all the TT organizations really want to grow TT in a long term plan? TTX is a joke
Im quite sure that the ITTF and most of the TT federations didnt even bother to ask all the western players that managed to beat the chinese and be the best of their opinion on what to do with TT.
appelgren and waldner a recent example. Swedish TV wanted them to comment for olympics and they didnt even show matilda ekholm's effort and I think the TT coverage in sweden was very poor so they protested and stopped cooperating with them. I hope their decision maybe shakes some stubborn heads, but I highly doubt it