Feng Tianwei has earned almost $3million since becoming a citizen

By all accounts, national table tennis player Feng Tianwei has had it good in Singapore.

Since becoming a citizen in 2007, she has earned almost $3millon in prize money, salary and other sponsorships by playing ping pong for Singapore.

She won Olympic medals at the 2008 and 2012 Games but returned empty handed from Rio.

On 25 October, the Singapore Table Tennis Association announced that it had decided to drop Feng from the national team as part of a rejuvenation process.

A new high performance strategic plan to take it through to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo left out 30-year-old Feng from the team.

Said STTA President Ellen Lee: “After the Rio Olympics, it is indeed timely for STTA to develop, rejuvenate and refresh our teams to be future ready.  Bold moves are needed if we are interested in challenging the top table tennis nations for honours. With competition becoming a lot keener, and with rivals like Japan catching up with Singapore, winning at the world stage has become a lot harder. We need to develop and rejuvenate our national teams to be future ready, and we need to place greater emphasis on the development of our youth players.

“Feng Tianwei has been a cornerstone of the national team since 2007. She has brought many golden moments to the sport. We would like to thank her for all that she has done for Singapore table tennis, and we would like to take this opportunity to wish Tianwei all the best in her future endeavours”

Feng’s release from national colours comes a day after the STTA sacked Li Hu for bringing a woman into the dormitory, which is against house rules.