In terms of development & grassroots sports, I envy the US greatly. Even their school/high school/uni sports league is very competitive, even more competitive than our pro league I believe. Schools are fighting to offer the best athletes to come to their school, Unis are offering the best scholarship packages for their atheletes. They have afix season of competition, etc. That's why when it comes to the national team, the coaches won't have prob with athletes, the only headache is which one to select.

I remember when I started cycling about 15 years ago, I based lotsa my training on programs from top athletes. But then I realized that it's pretty easy for them to design a training calendar becoz there's a fixed season over there, with lotsa competition. We dun have that here. Much improvement has happened in 15 years, but we are still behind.

We are talking about revamping the sports associations. But I hope those ppl in charge dun just look at the pro league. We have to revamp the whole system if we wanna see any improvement. Then again, pls dun expect things to improve overnite, we need to give them time. But pls do the right thing.

If I'm not mistaken, AIS was formed sometime after the 1988 Olympics after seeing Australian athletes' inability to compete with other athletes. It took them 4-5 years before they see results. Perhaps we should follow this.

Agree with you, but the problem with our sporting associations is that there's no proper merit system, and everyone is fighting to get more fundings from the government. A while back, the government had the system whereby a corporate company is being put as patrons of a sporting association and sponsor that sport. I guess it failed miserably because it sort of died off.
Regarding the AIS thing, many didn't realised that it takes a few years before you see the result, but you can see the progress done. However, the problem is that even at BJSS, there are some problems too, namely with the selection process, which I don't want to go into. It takes a big big cleanup and massive effort from each and everyone before the situation can be turned around. The question is that is anyone willing to invest time and effort into something that is very likely to backfire on them?

dude,

for tkd, if u were under an association or associate member and wanted to participate in selection, you would've been more than welcome.
if yr still interested, drop me a pm. they hold AGM annually lah...and i am interested to know who is the person who laughed at you.

Thanks for that man, but that was 8 years ago, before Sydney Olympics. I am now 31 and while I still think that I can compete, as the Iranians compete at the highest level until theirlate 30's. It's just hard to get back into that mindset again. It's a sad thing that I retired shortly after that. Mistake if you ask me, now, perhaps some small tournaments...