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Good idea except someone should tell her the ITTF has implemented a racist rule banning this.

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What I will say now might be controversial, but nevertheless:

Some might have heard of the problems, europe and esspecially german tabletennis fans had at the last European championships with emigrated chinese playing for there country. To be honest, I have very mixed feelings for this.

On the one hand, it is fully legal, if someone changes his/her nationality according to laws. And if this person is an athlete, no one should be prohibited to perform his/her sport. If this person is good enough to join a national team, the person should be considered for the team without disadvanteges because of their origin.

On the other hand, and this is the main problem here I think, it is not good if national teams mainly consist of imigrated persons. To argument here is very hard, as you are allways close the the political right wing, but it is a problem, I think is more prominent in europe than in Australia or USA. And the "racist rule" is not valid for european championships. Because of this, at the last european womens championships, there was one player in the quarterfinals, that was born in europe and none in the half finals.

You might say, if the europe born are to weak, then it is their problem. But this is also a problem of the national associations. If they can count on chinese to come to them after they haven't made it to the chinese national teams, they just don't work hard enough with the own juniors. And if they have promising juniors, the chinese seem to take their places in the national teams.

I hope you understand, what I want to say. It is really difficult for me to discuss this subject. But maybe you can widen your horizon and look on the subject from a different perspectiv. For example in soccer, you can't play for anthoer national team if you have played for one in a regular(not friendly) match. I think this is a good rule as it also implements comitment. The ITTF rule is also ok, as it doesn't allow "trading" of players.

Maybe one last thought to wrap this up. Nationality shouldn't be something, you can swap like a pair of socks. You should have a good reason to change your nationality, as it is a part of your identity.

Kind Regards

Our country has a Chinese player called Na Ning. Don't known his background but he's got a mention on the OOAK. He was the Irish no. 1 around 12 years ago and dropped off the scene to do his accountancy exams. He's now back on the TT scene again and well into the top 20. We think of him as one of our own - an Irish guy. Organises tournaments which gets a good turnout. A simple google search of Na Ning table tennis and you can see how his presence has added a new dimension to TT. If we had more guys like him it would raise the standard of TT in Ireland. Personally I wouldn't have a problem with a Chinese person representing our country.

P.s. There's a youtube video labelled senior classification tournament Na Ning verus Arthur Part 2 from August 2012 and I noticed my wife at the start of it with a white top. Don't know how Na Ning got away with wearing the white T-shirt.

It's a tricky subject, and any comments can easily be interpreted as racist, which is obviously NOT the intention here.

Personally I've like to a mixture of home-grown talent with 'imported' talent. This will allow better integration of imported with local players, and can hopefully lead to a rise in the level of home-grown talent.

Unless the countries outside China adopt a rigorous and intensive training method like the CHinese do, it's likely China will continue to dominate though...and in all honesty they would deserve it as well.

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