Glory of the nation

i happened to visit gary's blog just now and came upon one of his older post,
here's an excerpt from the post "he said that the national team condition was bad.. not many players went for training... some players had also quit from the team" the above mentioned "he" happens to be michael wong

this is what i want to say/ have to say. the moment i read the content of the blog, one thing came to my mind, the USA olympics mens basketball team of 2004. where most of the cash-rich NBA superstars chose to pass on the chance to represent USA in the olympics, results was, USA only managed to get a measly bronze in a sports that they have always dominated in the olympics. to the extent that in this year's beijing olympics, they were dubbed the 'redemption team'.

i simply don't understand why people who are privileged to be chosen for the national team can skip training or even choose to quit. of course the national team trainings are tough, which national trainings aren't anyway. but if you are at a national team level, obviously their training is of the level which you can handle right? and can anyone please enlighten me of why would people want to quit representing your country? of course unless you are already beyond the peak of your game and you feel that its time to step down, otherwise, i really feel you should give it all for your country. i'm not trying to be patriotic here, but just trying to make a point.

like what gary mentioned, there's only certain thing that you can do whilst you have the youth and energy. missed it, and there won't be a second shot at it anymore.

for me, i play basketball, go through tough trainings, just to inch myself closer to be in the national team (of course i still have quite a long way to go) but, i'm just trying to say that shouldn't it be the happiest thing to represent you country in the sport that you loved playing?