The slow death of table tennis in Sierra Leone, longform on what happens when an entire sport's infrastructure was held together by three people

147 points by U-fly_Alliance 12 hours ago on reddit | 19 comments

Mindless_Let1 | 11 hours ago

Love this kind of article which deep dives into a topic I didn't even know existed.

coleman57 | 11 hours ago

From the headline, it actually sounds like a parody of that kind of article. But it’s 2:54 AM and I’m gonna go to sleep, so I’ll never know.

ghanima | 8 hours ago

Imagine going on TrueReddit to confidently and incorrectly speculate about the content of an article based on its headline, then proclaim that you're not going to bother to read it so you can find out if you were misleading others...

horseradishstalker | 7 hours ago

Everyday. All day.

Recoil42 | 5 hours ago

To be fair, they did suggest they were sleep deprived.

Vesploogie | 4 hours ago

That means they knew better but chose wrong anyway.

Recoil42 | 4 hours ago

Sleep deprivation often does that.

ghanima | 4 hours ago

Sure, but why comment at all?

Recoil42 | 4 hours ago

Sleep deprivation.

[OP] U-fly_Alliance | 12 hours ago

This piece examines how Sierra Leone's table tennis scene collapsed from a thriving community to 80 players training in rented classrooms after the individuals who personally funded everything left. It is showing what happens when institutions are built entirely around individuals rather than systems, and how quickly decades of progress can disappear when there's no structural foundation underneath. The article also raises uncomfortable questions about international governing bodies collecting annual dues from federations that can barely survive, and whether that relationship is development or extraction. Should they really collect fees from an already struggling country and federation? It also shows how Sierra Leone's federation removed 2 presidents because of their Lebanese heritage, which shows how much discrimination exists. No one show be treated based on their skin color/heritage.