By Koh Yizhe/Red Sports

Victoria Junior College, Tuesday-Thursday, May 25-27, 2010 — Olympian Canagasabai Kunalan’s talk about his experience as one of Singapore’s representative at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games was the highlight for many at the Youth Sports Conference which was held in conjunction with the Youth Olympic Games (YOG).

Around 1,000 students from almost all secondary schools, junior colleges, polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education attended the conference where they learned about a wide variety of sports topics including sports science, sports excellence, sports services, and the role of sports in character development.

However, it was the experience of 68-year-old of Kunalan that spoke most to them.

His ability to link his personal experience to a level that the students understood and appreciated was essential in capturing the attention of the youths.

“Among the keynote sessions, Mr Kunalan’s was the best!” said R. Mithiran, a student from Chong Boon Secondary. “The other keynotes were dry with too many graphs! It was rather hard to understand, but for Kunalan’s session, I could understand it.”

Darrell Ong, a student of Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), echoed his fellow participant’s comments.

“Out of all the sessions, I think Kunalan’s one was the best,” said Darrell. “Some of the sessions were a bit hard to understand, but his was very educational. Overall, I think the whole conference was very educational.”

“I hope all the keynote sessions will get the students thinking about how they can use this information as athletes,” said Kunalan. “All of the talks have a take-home message so I hope the students will think about it and implement it into their lives.”

“After my session, I would like the students to implement the three Olympic values of excellence, respect and friendship in whatever they do — be it in their academics or in sports,” added Kunalan. “As words of advice to all the students, find what you are meant to do in life and pursue that to the highest level, but at the same time, be realistic — especially in Singapore’s society.”

Beside’s Kunalan’s sharing, students got to hear talks from a wide variety of speakers and experts in the fields of sports such as Dr Nick Alpin, Dr Benedict Tan and River Valley High School track-and-field coach Mr Steven Quek.

Said Mr Steven Quek, who taught students how to strike the balance of sports and studies: “It was very good to be sharing with so many students and I hope what I have talked about will make balancing both sports and studies a little more manageable for them. I definitely think that some of them picked up something useful from this session.”

On top of that, the delegates also got to interact with famous local sports personalities like Wushu expert Vincent Ng, netball captain Jean Ng, former national swimmer Mark Chay and ex-swimming queen and nominated member of parliament Joscelin Yeo. These athletes shared their experiences on representing Singapore at international events and were more than happy to satisfy the burning curiosity of the participants.

“I love speaking and interacting with youths and I hope what I have shared will have an impact on them,” said swimmer Joscelin Yeo. “I hope they can relate to what I have said and it spoke to them.”

Another major hit among the students was the 2010-second mass dance. Delegates were taught the steps to the YOG cheer and danced for a total of 2010 seconds on the closing day.

“The dance and cheer are really catchy!” said Ferdinand Aldo, one of the student leaders at the conference. “It is easy enough and I think the students really enjoyed it.”

“Coming into the conference, I thought it would be very boring, but at the end, my perception has changed,” commented Amanina Hidayah Bte K. “The mass dance was a highlight of the conference for me, and I felt the sessions were beneficial as well.”

“With youths from different schools and different cultures mixing together, it is a form of building national and common identity,” said Dr. Lee Kok Sonk, Chairman of the Youth Sports Conference. “An important element in this conference is that it is for youths by youths. We wanted to actively engage the youths in all these different sporting issues.”

“Overall, it was a wonderful job done by the organising committee and I would like to thank the whole team for one and a half years of preparation and planning,” added Dr Lee.

Victoria Junior College principal Mr Chan Poh Meng summed up the conference, saying: “It is a rare privilege to host this Youth Sports Conference. We are co-hosting it with MOE and since we are a school that is well known for its sports, I think it was a good fit.”

“This event also provides an opportunity for the students of Victoria Junior College to benefit from this landmark event. They have really done a lot in the organisation of this event. Leading the participants, who are their fellow peers, I believe it has helped with their development,” added Mr Chan.

“I think we only have received positive vibes from the delegates and in that sense, I believe it is a successful conference.”