Is it 100% wrong to say 1% chance?

Was comment on women's table tennis team defeatist or truth?
By Rohit Brijnath, The Straits Times, 7 Apr 2012

UNBEATABLE is a sporting myth, invincible is a fabrication. Always there is a chance. Sprinter Usain Bolt may false start and Barcelona FC may have collective diarrhoea. But often, it is a tiny chance. Because athletes become so suffocatingly dominant that we reach for the word 'invincible'. As if they have bypassed human frailty to become machines.

A basketball coach said a dissection of Michael Jordan would reveal 'electrons and circuits', not 'muscle and sinew'. China's dazzling women's table tennis squad is similar, their precision so commanding that they resemble wound-up, racket-holding automatons.

If the golfer Colin Montgomerie saw them, he might say, as he said of Tiger Woods after the third round of the 1997 Masters: 'There is no chance humanly possible that he is going to lose.'

Like Montgomerie, runner Venuste Niyongabo was not conceding when he said of the 1,500m at the 1996 Olympics: 'As long as (Noureddine) Morceli is there, it is always a race for second place.'

They were stating reality.

Yet, when Singapore's women's coach said they had a '1 per cent chance of beating China' at the recent world team championships, some were taken aback.

One per cent smells defeatist, it suggests a match over before it commences. Nations want their teams to be bold, for it allows them to feel hopeful themselves and thus driven to watch and cheer.

Yet, in an athletic world drowning in cliches, the unvarnished truth has its own appeal. We want reality rather than a brashness built on fiction. Indeed, no one blanched when a Thailand official said of our team at the 2009 SEA Games: 'It would be easier to walk back to Bangkok than to win gold.'

Still, '1 per cent', brings unease. The only time we like the figure '1' is when it is about No.1. But '1' chance out of 100 sounds like no chance.

But then the odds, realistically, were about that. Like Greece being 110-1 favourites at Euro 2004. You might say, but Greece won? I will say Singapore beat China at the world team championships in 2010. It was majestic; it was also, like Greece, an aberration.

The complication of 1 per cent is that if a team ranked 15th or 20th uttered it about China, we would shrug. When the No. 2 team says it - though Singapore is about to fall to No. 3 - it seems awkward. No. 2 is literally one place behind, and thus it suggests a closeness, a striking distance.

It is a fallacy. If anything, a true ranking would put China at No. 1, and the next best team at No. 10. It is why we use labels like 'unbeatable', for this No. 1 to No. 2 divide often seems unbridgeable.

In April 2001, the gap between Woods at No.1 and Phil Mickelson at No. 2 was greater than the gap between Mickelson and the world No.200.

In tennis, players facing Roger Federer would buy tickets home before walking on court. In end 2006, the difference between him and No. 2. Rafael Nadal in points was equal to the distance between Nadal and the world No. 66. It was simply outrageous. Yes, Federer, even then, lost to Nadal and to other players now and then.

But table tennis is a more confounding beast. It is not simply a one-off contest between two people where surface, contrasting styles, poor form, injury, luck can lead to an upset. Here, in a team championship, Singapore must win three matches, must produce three miracles, must find three absurdly rarefied performances all at once on the same day.

From every angle, the equation is lopsided. A report says China has 300 million ping pong enthusiasts; the Singapore Table Tennis Association estimates it has more than 1,500 paddlers registered in its programmes. Between 1996 and 2009, Singapore played China 13 times and lost all 13. In the 42 matches in those contests, we won three. Since victory in Moscow 2010, we have played them five times and never won. In those 16 matches, we won one. Suddenly, 1 per cent chance has a different feel to it.

When I called Sandy Gordon, a sports psychologist at the University of Western Australia, he asked: 'Who said the 1 per cent? Management or player?' 'Management,' I replied. To which he said: 'If management is doing it, it is crafty.'

It is as if, he said, they are gaining a higher ground by claiming the lower ground. In effect, their identity is as underdogs. Putting themselves into a familiar position of 'nothing to lose' and clarifying they are not really defending champions, but long-shots again. And by giving 99 per cent chance to their rivals, they are 'heaping pressure on China'.

Yet, Gordon added: 'If, as an athlete, you go in expecting to lose, that can't be right.' And this is where the 1 per cent becomes complicated. Because people tend to associate a coach's words with his players' mindset: As if the athlete's own psychology has been infected with a similar futility. If he isn't bold, can she be? Is his '1 per cent' quote easing expectation on his players, but also diminishing them?

Not really. The athlete may know she has little chance, but may play at full throttle in the hope of taking that small chance. Feng Tianwei said they give 100 per cent, and there is no evidence to say they do not. As Gordon said: 'If you are giving 100 per cent while playing, you never lose. You only lose when you don't try.'

Second place surely is worthy of its own respect. A sportswear hoarding during the 1996 Olympics noted that 'You don't win silver, you lose gold', but it is only a copy writer's clever line.

Second place on a large planet is significant. Second place with a team absent of bench strength is telling. Second place when South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong were planning coups is pressure. And now, forget eyeing first place, we have to probably fight our way back to second.

But, as with all teams, perception matters. Leaving aside all else, Singapore's women's team is not quite endearing. On a charm scale, they just about move the meter beyond... well... 1 per cent. If they think this is irrelevant, it is an error.

The truth is, truly loveable teams are offered latitude and cherished teams are rarely second guessed. A public fully won over is more generous in any defeat. And a public on their side does one thing more. It alters the chances.

To maybe 3 per cent.