Contributed by Christopher Ong

Yio Chu Kang Sports Hall, Tuesday, December 2, 2008 – Participants at the inaugural 2008 Cheers Post-Secondary Team Challenge have given it the thumbs-up.

On the opening day of the mixed-team event, players from the various tertiary institutions agreed that it is a welcome addition to the schools' badminton scene in Singapore, offering them more chances for competitive exposure.

Currently, for junior college teams, there is only the National Inter-School Badminton Championships.

The polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education have the Polytechnic-Institute of Technical Education (POL-ITE) Games.

Meanwhile the universities have the Institute-Varsity-Polytechnic Games (IVP), where they face the polytechnics and a combined-ITE team comprising the best ITE shuttlers.

Said Edwin Pang, CEO of the Singapore Badminton Association: " This is the first time, with the support of Cheers, that SBA has created a combined tertiary institution competitive platform for the best shuttlers from the varsities, polyechnics, ITE and JCs, to pit their skills against each other.

"Hopefully with this event, we can contribute to raising the standard of play at the tertiary level and at the same time promote the interaction amongst youth from a cross-section of Singaporean society as they pursue their passion in badminton."

Hamon Shen, a Nanyang Technological University (NTU) shuttler, certainly shared this view.

Said the 23-year-old: "You see interaction between players of different age groups, older players such as myself get to know the younger talent from the JCs. This is healthy for the local badminton scene."

"We may have an advantage in terms of experience and strength, but the younger players will gain much from these match-ups."

Agreeing with him was Adrian Kang, vice-captain of the Victoria Junior College team.

The 18-year-old said: "The standard of the polytechnics is slightly higher than ours, and from what I've seen of NTU, they are far better than us. But even though it will be tough for us, it's still worth it to take part."

"Normally we only get to play among the JCs, so this is a real eye-opener for us."

Indeed, the strength and experience of the older teams was on full display as NTU and Temasek Polytechnic swept aside Anderson JC and Victoria JC 5-0 and 4-1 respectively.

However, Temasek Polytechnic shuttler Aaron Tan, 22, insisted: "Age may not necessarily be a barrier. The whole idea is to take part, learn and gain exposure, and at the same time, have fun."

Sharing their enthusiasm is ITE College West (Dover) shuttler, Hamdani Bin Rahmad, 19. He said: "Usually, I only play at POLITE, against the other polytechnic and ITE teams."

"This is a chance to see how we match up against all the (tertiary) teams in Singapore."

Finally, Shen hopes and believes that more teams will join this competition next year.

He said: "I don't see why more schools won't take part since the prize money ($2,800) is attractive."

For more information on the results, please log on to this website.

Written by: Christopher Ong
02 Dec 2008