By Laura Reid

Kallang Ice World, Saturday, March 7, 2009 - It was the ice version of the Kallang Roar (with apologies to the nation's legions of football fans) today as the Singapore National Figure Skating Championships got underway at Kallang Ice World with a loud, standing room-only crowd in attendance.

People whooped, clapped and stomped their approval as the skaters took the ice. It was an action-packed five hours of competition, with 50 skaters taking part in 15 events. The Nationals have been held for eight consecutive years by the Singapore Ice Skating Association.

For the skaters, the competition was even more stressful than usual because the rink had been closed for the last week of February. The last week before Nationals was a scramble as many skaters worked to fine-tune their programmes once the rink reopened.

But Singapore's figure skaters have a do-or-die attitude. There were many crowd favourites, including the National and Youth Development Team members. The Championship also saw its first Senior Ladies competitor Leong Kai Jing, who lives and trains in Canada. The sixteen year-old landed a clean double axel in the programme, an achievement that hasn't been seen in competition in Singapore for many years.

The hottest competitions were in the Novice and Junior Ladies category. (Please see the separate story on the Junior Ladies event.) In the Novice Ladies category, familiar faces Ng Yi Ching, Phoebe Wang and Celine Bavaud were joined by Dion Tan, a Singaporean living in Japan.

After skating the Novice short programme today, 12 year-old Ng Yi Ching was in first place with an elegant programme that showed great flow with fast-moving spins and good height on her jumps. Yi Ching's total score was 27.80, reflecting a technical element score of 14.06 and a programme components score of 14.74. Although she had a few jump problems, a situation shared by many skaters throughout the day, Yi Ching proved again that she is one of the most fluid skaters in Singapore today.

Coming through with a completely different style of skating was Dion Tan, an 11-year old powerhouse who trains in Japan. Dion was in second place at the end of the short programme, scoring a total mark of 26.77. Her technical mark was 12.97 and her programme components score was 13.80. If she lacked finesse in her jumping technique, she still managed to muscle her way through the elements, including a brave attempt at the double axel. It's likely that judges downgraded the double axel to a single, although SISA had not posted the full scores on their website as of the end of midnight.

The National Figure Skating Championships resume at noon today at Kallang Ice World at Kallang LeisurePark (next to Singapore Indoor Stadium). Admission is free.