By Erwin Wong and Jan Lin
Sporting moments are the soul of a sports event, and they linger on after the curtains have fallen. Red Sports has put together our top 10 list of Team Singapore moments at the inaugural Asian Youth Games.
These moments captured our imagination because there were tears, there were surprises, there was excitement, there was passion.
Were they a moment for you too?
1. The boys and girls bowling team had exceptional last blocks of games to surge to their respective silver medals at the death. The boys team were lying 4th before the final game but bowled a score of 918 to clinch the silver. The girls also went from 3rd to 2nd place with a final game of 928. From left to right: Darshini Krishna, Anthea Soh, New Hui Fen, Ilma Nur Jannah Fadzal, Brandon Lee, Christopher Hwang, Basil Low, Justin Lim. (Photo 1 © Marvin Lowe/Red Sports file photo)
2. Our flag-bearer Quah Ting Wen not only led the contingent out in the opening ceremony, but helmed the gold medal charge for us as well. The new swim queen won 4 golds, the first of which was the 200m Freestyle. With 50m to go, she turned just behind in second place but accelerated away to finish in a new national record of 1:59.21s. This places her as the 6th fastest Asian in this event this year. She said, "I'm very happy to make it under two minutes." (Photo 2 © Les Tan/Red Sports file photo)
3. The medley relay in swimming is supposed to be swum by the best on the team for each discipline. But our girls defied logic when 3 freestyle specialists were sent out to the starting blocks, and a little over 4 minutes later, returned with the bronze medal. Quah Ting Wen started the race off on the backstroke leg and after Roanne Ho and Lynette Lim returned on their breastroke and butterfly legs in 4th place, it was Amanda Lim’s turn on her favourite freestyle. She overtook the Kazakhstan swimmer and anchored Singapore home to a bronze. Their time of 4:13.34s, despite a lack of butterfly and backstroke specialists, was only 0.16s off the current national record. From left to right: Quah Ting Wen, Roanne Ho, Lynette Lim, Amanda Lim. (Photo 3 © Les Tan/Red Sports file photo)
4. The golden girls of the 4x100m Freestyle relay team ended the swimming programme with a big splash, clinching the gold medal and national record to boot. Their time of 3:46.91s obliterated the previous mark by more than 6 seconds and was achieved by a team who averaged 16 years and 2 months old. From left to right: Koh Hui Yu, Quah Ting Wen, Amanda Lim, Lynette Lim. (Photo 4 © Les Tan/Red Sports file photo)
5. In Singapore’s football opener against Iran, substitute Hanafi Akbar hit a scorcher from outside the penalty box to make it 1-1, but Singapore could not hold on for a draw against the eventual bronze medallists and conceded a goal 7 minutes from time to lose 1-2. Hanafi’s skills on the ball made him a pleasure to watch throughout the tournament. (Photo 5 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
6. Basil Low clinched Team Singapore’s 9th and final gold medal of the Games with his Masters win. 7 strikes and a spare in the first game set him on his way to a 236-220 lead, and Basil's stupendous second game further extended the advantage. He did not have the best of starts when he split the pins in the first frame, but then proceeded to string together 9 consecutive strikes to seal the gold medal, winning 501-433 in the step-ladder final. (Photo 6 © Marvin Lowe/Red Sports file photo)
7. Isabelle Li was one game away from at least a bronze medal in the table tennis girls’ singles competition, and North Korea’s Kim Song I stood in her way. It was an epic 7-setter which might have ended differently had Isabelle won the third set after leading 10-4, but she did not, and Kim won 9-11, 11-7, 12-10, 10-12, 11-3, 8-11, 11-7, leaving one of our brightest young paddlers fighting back her tears after the match. (Photo 7 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports file photo)
8. Sailor Darren Choy was peerless in the boys’ Byte CII category, racking up 9 first-placed finishes in 11 races to clinch the gold with aplomb. He was so dominant that he sewed up the gold with a race to spare. (Photo 8 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)
9. The boys FIBA33 basketball team had the best Singapore team performance in the Games when they advanced to the quarter-final round. After an opening defeat against favourites China where they gave a good account of themselves, they beat Uzbekistan and India to set up a quarter-final showdown with South Korea, where they finally bowed out 24-34. Left to right: Russel Low, Goh Kong Tat, Larry Liew, Jabez Su. (Photo 9 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports file photo)
10. Bowling sensation New Hui Fen sparked off our gold rush by winning Singapore’s first gold of the Games. The 17 year old faced tough opposition in the girls’ singles, but overcame a slow start with consistently good bowling, and averaged 226.5 pinfalls over 6 games to clinch first place by 45 pinfalls. (Photo 10 © Marvin Lowe/Red Sports file photo)
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I agree Junwei… To me, the spirit of sports is not just about winning… And it’s not easy to list down 10 moments.
All the young athletes have done well and I hope Singaporeans will support them.
My kids and I watched the match played by Isabelle and it was a great game! Her fighting spirit is something which I admire!
Les,
Thanks for the explanation. No doubt that Red Sports had better coverage than The Straits Times and New Paper. Keep up the good work.
@WW: Thanks, WW. : )
@WW.
Thanks for your comment.
There are two issues which you have raised – coverage of athletics and great moments.
For coverage of athletics, please see this post: http://redsports.sg/2009/07/12/ayg-stories-crew/
It will show that the Red Sports gave quite a bit of coverage for athletics.
As for great moments, the list above is a personal opinion of the writers.
Readers will obviously have their own highlight moments and we welcome them to list their own.
I doubt there will be a list of top 10 that everyone will agree with.
What happen to the coverage of Athletics? No great moment? If you were at the stadium watching medal winning events i.e. Boy 100m, Girl 100 hurdles etc, your heart would be poping. 3 highlights for Swimming and 0 for Athletics.
yea where’s shahrir?
@ice – we agree about your point with regards to the coverage for football. Hence this article:
http://redsports.sg/2009/07/10/basketball-football-ayg/
But not sure why this list is “funny”. It highlights a moment of individual football brilliance. The other 9 highlights have nothing to do with football.
Also, the REDcrew have written a total of 64 stories on the AYG covering the different sports that Singapore athletes have been involved in.
You can take a quick browse of the AYG stories we wrote to confirm it. It’s not just about football.
http://redsports.sg/category/asian-youth-games/
Thanks Kar Teck, Jun Wei. : )
I guess from a post like this, it reveals to us whether sports readers in Singapore have matured in their perception of “sports”.
We asked, “Were they a moment for you too?” – clearly this post is not about imposing/asserting our views but just a sharing. : )
Sporting moments are fundamentally an exemplification of the ‘soul’ of a sport, a team, an individual – what stays on after the hype wears off.
Lynette may have broken her own 400m record and got a gold and swam a beautiful victory – but for her, a freestyle specialist, to brave the outrageous butterfly leg in the 4×100 medley relay and win the bronze, that is a moment I know I will remember Lynette for.
Hanafi was singled out precisely because despite the disappointment of the football team, but when Hanafi found the net – I will not deny that for a moment I thought Singapore might win. And if that thought hit you, too, then that was already a moment for you.
Victories are temporal, moments are eternal – thank you. : )
@marissab @Emmanuel @ice
I truly believe this list is entirely the opinion of the writer.
Agree with @junwei – instead of keep on asking who is not on this list, why don’t everyone who has a better opinion list their own top 10 moments? Trust me it’s not easy.
This post is about the Singapore moments for us. It need not necessarily have to be a moment where a medal was won. If that is the case then basketball should not be up there. But do the fans think that they have not fought hard and deserved credit?
Yes the Singapore football team might not have delivered but certainly seeing them score against a mightier Iran was definitely a moment for us. Watching Isabelle lose out to her North Korean opponent in that close 7-set match was definitely a memorable moment, and seeing her on the brink of tears was definitely a Singapore moment for me though she might not have won a medal. The fighting spirit and emotion put in was definitely one she can be proud of.
So @marrissab, why not you put up your 10 Singapore moments. If all you care about are the gold medal winners then you are not showing respect to the other athletes who have put in their all and unfortunately lost out on a medal.
What a funny list. I do not understand why football is always praised to the skies. Crash out in the group stages? Get full coverage in the papers. Win only a SEA Games bronze? Full coverage in the papers. People have to realise our footballers do not deliver, on any stages, regional or international. When you give football so much attention, have you ever thought of our athletes in other sports who work equally hard and actually have results to show for it? Yet they always get one-liner mention in the papers while football hog the limelight.
You can argue that the footballers train hard. But ALL our athletes train hard, yet somehow they dont get the attention they deserve
Where is Shahrir?
Isabelle showed great sportsmanship and perseverance in her game with the Korean and she deserves to be recognized for she has brought out the spirit of sports. the paddlers have been training extremely hard for the AYG and YOG. So they deserve due recognition for their efforts and perseverance. Please show respect for their efforts:D
You have all the gold medallists’ moments up there, except Lynette Lim’s 400 free win? Come on, show some respect. Football and table tennis for their complete lack of results somehow get on this list, but a gold medallist isnt.
isabelle rocks la!