By Teo Ser Luck, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports
As host for the Youth Olympic Games in 2010, it comes with some expectation to field a team of athletes for all 26 sports. Do you think we can do it?
I know for sure that some people have never heard of the Pentathlon but it is one of the oldest sports in the Olympic progamme. What about Handball? And where can I find weightlifters?
Are there potential weightlifters, pentathletes and handball players out there between 14 and 18 years old? If we don’t have those players, does that mean we will not field athletes for all 26 sports?
Should we deny anyone who is willing to give a shot at a new sport the opportunity to don national colours even if they are not up to world-class standards?
What are your views?
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Feel free to leave comments for Ser Luck to respond to. You may also wish to take part in the REDpoll. The poll allows you a choice of multiple answers. Read Teo Ser Luck’s responses to readers’ comments in previous posts.
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Do we have Singaporeans willing to compete in YOG?
The answer would be a resounding YES!
Has anyone who has participated in any form of sporting activity experienced the passion that is so strong that they are willing to put their heart and souls into achieving their aims?
Singapore lacks the ‘heart’ so to speak to facilitate such a development. In the sense of it, the ability for ‘passion’ to achieve such a level in the context of the public service is a top-down approach. The YOG is seen as a perfect opportunity for Singapore to showcase itself as a nation with the ability to provide for all aspects of modern development. A hub of sorts, but underneath it or rather what sports development lack in Singapore is the passion to drive Singapore to its best as a sporting hub.
Yes there are people willing to participate but do we have the facilities and resources to provide for them? NSAs today have been overwhelmed or may even have overlooked the most basic of requirements need to develop these Singaporeans willing to compete, the passion and the commitment.
The common excuse today is the lack of time, academic concerns, etc…then I ask this question. What defines an athlete? At the YOG level, where the age is 13 – 18years to qualify then they are all defintely full time students. But why is it that other countries are able to come up with the right infrastructure for such commitments and culture and we are not?
The current infrastructure in place in education, sporting development, culture, majority social and public recognition do not allow our nation’s youth to be fully immersed in their ‘passions’ for sporting excellence. Monetary, time, place demands of sports today have not allowed for a full fledged development of this area. But there are outside vendors, who for the love of the game have started to instill this ‘passion’ into their potential athletes for YOG, but due to sometimes differing interests of private organisations and NSAs many a time they do not fall into place for the good of the country.
Then may I ask this question in return, where is the middle line where we can support our YOG and yet match to both private and public demands so as to achieve the gold we have been waiting for?
We do have Singaporeans willing to compete, willing to spend the money and the time to commit into YOG but when will the public sector recognise these fruits of labour and work hand in hand with their stakeholders for the good of the sport?
do singapore have youth boys & girls handball national team?
i’m interested to be part the team
It’s to good to know that Tug-of-war was being mentioned. yes, we do have a Federation in S’pore. Tug-of-War has been quite low profile all these years. But I have to say that since 2006, this sport is gaining popularity. For example, we have represented S’pore to participate in the Asian TOW Championship @ Japan in 2006. Likewise, we will also be representing S’pore in the Asian Championship @ Macau in Nov 2008. In addition, the federation has also organised the S’pore TOW Open in Jul 08 this year. Our team from the Prisons Department is the overall champion. If you know of anyone who is interested, pls drop me an email. Thanks.
I wanna take part in handball!!!I’m not in any club or anything but i got the skills.
Hi Sir,
It’s great to see a lively discussion regarding the less well-known sports in Singapore in this forum. It gives member and players of these little known sports a avenue to voice out their views and support.
In addition to HFS, there is actually another larger independent handball committee, The Handball Association of Singapore(THAS) that has been around for a number of years. While HFS’ focus is more on youth development of the sport, THAS has been holding the annual Singapore Handball League for the 4th year running and has been holding referee courses for more experience players. We have also conducted handball workshops for companies like Siemens and organized the regional Singapore Handball Open in 2005.
We have also taken part in many international competitions in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan and will be participating in one this coming July. Aside from getting more experience, our overseas experience have also opened our eyes to other lesser known sports like tchoukball.
Our website is http://www.thas.bravehost.com and we welcome anyone who wants to know more about the sport or participate in any of our events. Our members would be glad to help promote handball especially for YOG if our assistance is required.
Do feel free to contact us at anytime 🙂
Thank you for all the comments. Good points. The intent would be for any boys or girls interested to give it a shot. There is no harm in trying to represent Singapore in say,Penthalon. Even if you don’t qualify at the end of the day, you have tried. I know there are a few sports where SIngapore has never been represented at this age group. Boys and girls out there, give it some thought…..you might just be the next Youth Olympian, or….Youth Olympic Medalist ! As for some of the sports where the age is limited to the very young like under 16 or under 15, this is the decision of the international federation. There are considerations of focusing on younger youths and limiting the number of participants. The games is targetting at 3500 athletes. All that said, as host country, we should do what we can to participate and attempt to qualify in as many sports as we could.
Hey Sir,
There is a group of sports volunteers(mostly PE teachers) who have come together in the beginnning of this year to promote Handball!! Some of the volunteers played Handball in their varsity years and completely love this sports!! We will be conducting Handball Clinic at Braddell Heights CC during this May/June Holidays and wil be organising the Inaugural SIngapore Youth Handball Challenge 2008 in July to select youth handball players to train under HFS. We want to send in a team to compete for YOG 2010!!
Please visit us http://www.hfs.org.sg and give us your greatest support. =p
Junwei, intriguing factoid! And it appears we don’t have an NSA for tug-of-war. Not yet anyway 🙂
Something interesting, I found out that Tug-of-War used to be an Olympic Sport. It was included in the Summer Olympic Games from 1900 till 1920.
There is even an international Tug of War Federation (http://www.tugofwar-twif.org/) !! I was like, LOL. Not only that, Singapore is actually a member country of TWIF. Though we don’t have an official website and I don’t think we take part in the international competitions. But still…….. 😀
I feel that more open trials should be held, so Singapore can mould potential athletes to compete in various sports for the YOGs, and this would also give teenagers a chance if their school does not offer the sport as a CCA.
‘A teenager’ is correct- for example, the girls’ soccer event for the YOG will be an U-16 even- stuff like this, it is hard to take, especially when your classmates are being groomed for YOG in various other events.
I’m not sure about this, but I also heard that the age cap for girls is those born at or after 1993, and boys 1992. If this is true, why the disparity?
I agree with superhiro. I guess, more activities should be organized to give people opportunities to, as superhiro said, let their own potentials shine through.
How about the other events? We should also open more spots for athletes who have not yet reach the “benchmark” to take part in whatever events. People are quiiting sports because they do not see the point – why spend hundreds on a pair of shoes and supplements if you do not even have a chance to train under a good coach and let your own potential shine through?
We should start preparing our athletes by setting up youth squads and trainings to really bring the best out of them?
If there are opportunitites for these young athletes to give a shot at handball/ pentathlon/ weightlifting, why deny them? I mean, its youth olympics… Other than winning medals I think there’re a lot more things we can achieve out of it, like, character development through sports? Wouldn’t it be good that they’re expose to competitive sports at a younger age where they learn to compete fairly, cherish friendships made along the way and pick up positive attitude towards sports/ life?
Baron de Coubertin (Olympic founder) once say, “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”
Give the young ones a chance to wear the national colours.
Since there are some schools who don’t offer some CCAs, but are actually quite good at it, I think those sort of people should be given a chance to compete. At the very least, give them the chance of a test to see whether they can qualify for the Games. My batch of students in my secondary school are very enthusiastic about basketball, but sadly, due to complications before we had entered the school, there is no CCA for it. And I think that we can very well hold our own or even more in a game =p. I mean, if they’re good but they’re not in that CCA, they should be given an opportunity to at the least try out to see whether they can qualify for the games.
Just an opinion.
if i am not representing my sch can i still join?
It is a pity that we do not have such athletes. But we can start training hard now. If people were to sign up in order to participate in the other sports, why not just accept them? After all, youth olympics is about the spirit, and not the achievements. Sure, we have our niche sports that will win us medals (hopefully!:D), but its okay that we dont win much, cos the olympic spirit is about participation. If the host country was to exemplify that, then I am sure that we would set a good example for the inaugural youth olympics, and we will definitely do a great job at organising it.
However, there are restrictions in place. If I’m not wrong, some sports have placed age limits on athletes going to compete, and the age limit is 13-14. But if they can compete up to the ages of 18, and students who are 15,16 now who would like to compete and are unable to due to the age limit, then what are they to do? We might lose many valuable athletes. I understand that there is rationale behind such decisions, but this decision is slightly unreasonable in many of my friends who are aspiring participants. Athletes 15-16 have more experience, more committed to the sport, more mature. Perhaps the committee coud look into it, and perhaps set a uniform age limit across the board. It would seem unfair to participants whose friends of their age can participate, but not them.
Hope this is fine (: