As I dig out more pics, managed to find more of her info on wiki, when has wiki disappoint us? After reading, I was even more impressed!!
Born 1 November 1988, already rank 10 at the age of 19++, highest table tennis ranking for any Japanese on the official ITTF rankings. Starting to play at 3 yrs old, and playing professional at 10, joining the Japanese team in the following year. Numerous competitons in her 20 years of playing. Recently made abassador to China-Japan Cutural and Sports exchange year along with Noriko Sakai. Impressive!! Education wise, she on her way to the Waseda University.
Besides all of those stats, she was the flag bearer of the team Japan at the Olympics opening ceremony!! A prestigious honour for any sportsman or woman, only the country's icon will be carrying the flag, such as Roger Federer for Switzerland or Yao Ming for China.
By the way looking at the rankings for ITTF, look at the names of top 25 woman players and see the pattern, while looking at their country again, what do you see? http://www.ittf.com/ittf_ranking/Ranking.asp
While we admire her success and talent, she has to be part of Japan sporting and world table tennis history. But are you aware that at the age of 3, you would not remember what you like and what you don't? At 3 when u start playing table tennis, is it really what you want? While many Singaporean were scolding some parents for using their young kids to show off and force them to produce trophies of all sorts, is Ai Fukuhara one of these victims like those in Singapore? If not, then what's the difference between her and some of our poor kids performing on Saturdays programmes singing and dancing? Why do we praise her only but scold those in Singapore? So when parents push their child to learn something, is she becoming another Ai Fukuhara or becoming a victim of Singapore critics?
Think about it...
Ai Fukuhara.. Stay cute..
