By Colin Tung and Les Tan
For all the wonderful news about Singapore hosting the 2010 Youth Olympic Games (YOG), of a Singaporean becoming a vice-president at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Singapore Slingers tipping off in the inaugural ASEAN Basketball League (ABL), the way we schedule youth championships makes you wonder if we are serious about the future of sport.
Because sports is about youth, how we treat youth athletes in reality shows what disregard we have for them and our collective sporting future.
So what if we can host a YOG?
So what if we have a Singapore VP in the IOC?
We bend over backwards for outsiders but we treat our youth athletes otherwise.
The way we schedule youth sport leaves much to be desired. In fact, we are putting youth athletes at risk of injury.
The ongoing IVP Track-and-Field Championships take place over just two days. This means some athletes have to endure not just the heats and the final of an event on the same day, but they also have multiple events back-to-back.
Case in point – Amanda Choo of Nanyang Technological University, the women’s national 100m record holder.
On Sunday, October 11, her first job of the day was to qualify for the final of the women’s 100m and that she did comfortably with the leading time of 12.68 seconds. That was at 2.45pm.
At 4.15pm, she trooped over to the field to contest the shot put final in which she finished a respectable seventh position with her effort of 7.80m (who knew our women’s 100m record holder could throw too?).
Then fifty minutes later at 5.05pm, she dug her spikes into the starting blocks for the 100m final.
In the women’s 1500m final, the bell indicating the final lap was rung one lap early. The women 1500m runners ran the lap thinking it was their last, and then were told to keep running another lap.
What farcical organisation is this?
Mind you, this is supposed to be a high-level competition with some of the best youth athletes in the land. These are athletes in their prime. And this is what they get for their months of toil.
Yes, maybe they should have counted the laps on their own but maybe the bell is there for a reason too?
A digital clock was also conspicuously absent from the side of the track at the finish line.
A look at the scheduling for the Polytechnic-Institute of Technical Education (POL-ITE) Games also makes you wonder.
The ongoing POL-ITE rugby championship involves five schools playing all their round-robin fixtures in 17 days. The POL-ITE netball championship, also going on now, sees six schools play their round-robin fixtures in nine days.
Do you know the message this sends out? It just says, “Let’s get it over with.”
Do we eat one month’s worth of food in seven days?
Do we teach the syllabus for a term in one week?
For team sports, there is the repeated cycle of training, competing and recovery that is important. Training two months for a seven day competition sends all the wrong signals.
Cramming fixtures into short periods of time also doesn’t give fans of the teams and the sport a chance to catch the games.
If we were really serious about youth development, we would treat the POL-ITE and IVP scheduling with a lot more respect than it currently deserves.
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Good read. Especially for a contact sport like rugby, there’s so much hitting and contact and we finish our POL-ITE of 4 games in 2 11days? There’s no time to rest and recover from the niggling injuries.
I dun think its a problem to organize IVP track and field events all over 2 days. MAybe for team sports it is a problem. But individual sports especially track and field, theres not problem. Look at Usain Bolt, running 4 high speed 100m races over 2 days. Its the same for all the athletes so nobody should complaining. The cramp fixture is also for sieving out the most gifted athletes in singapore, those who can run the 100m or 10000m races or heats like its a walk in the park. We want to see who can do that because we need them to beat the rest of the world at major olympics and world championships. We dun want athletes who are weak, injury proned or whatever. If u got injured just running the heats or even finals or got tired and exhausted, then maybe u just suck, go home and train harder, rather than complain its too cramp. train until u can run ur races without even exerting or without any sign or distress or breathing at the finish. Thats how kenenisa bekele won and thats how usain bolt do it. bekele wasnt even trying if u saw his race vids. he look like he had just woke up from a sleep. wasnt breathing heavily at the finish at all. and he wasnt acting tryin not to breathe. he was all natural.
Physical Education in Singapore schools is a farce.Pupils are not taught the basic skills in track and field events.Only on Sports Day participants want to know how a javelin and shot put is to be thrown.They do not know the rules on High and Long jumps,not to mention triple jump.And Yet HOD PEs receive hefty bonuses,promotions and other perks. Is this not a joke.How could Singapore ever win a medal in sports?
2 months is considered long. For ivp and polite basketball it ends within 2 or 3 weeks at most. Just imagine training for the whole year and playing a handful of games. And there was a case of combined ite boys not joining the ivp bcos of lack of funds?
COMMENTS EDITED FOR FOUL LANGUAGE
“Because sports is about youth, how we treat youth athletes in reality shows what disregard we have for them and our collective sporting future.”
Precisely the reason why USA is not sending their swimmers, cyclist and shooters to Singapore for the YOG.
What sporting future? Singapore does not have a sporting future – period. It is really sad that a nation which had produced some of the finest swimmers and cyclist the world has ever seen thinks it is a waste of time to send their future Michael Phelps and Lance Amstrongs to Singapore.
I have personally played four years in the basketball secondary tournament.
Every year, without fail..it will only take about 2months to finish the whole tournament including the national finals.
What happens to the another ten months in the academic years?
Why do we join a CCA then if we don’t get to compete on a day-to-day basis?
USA FTW!
“Feast-and-famine”… Hahaha, I like the way you put it, statgirl ;).
Hear, hear. The feast-and-famine school sports calendar is an issue Red Sports has flagged before. It’s just one of the many symptoms of Singapore’s academics-first mindset. When will we realise that there are long-term benefits to be reaped from rebalancing the education system in favour of sports and other pursuits?
I was at the IVP c’ships on sunday too..Saw the bell being rung wrgly and the absence of the digital clock.
I think it might be the case of shortage of manpower and time.
Since the Singapore system doesn’t allow it, I think the organizers do not have much choice.
Holding a league or prolonged tournaments could raise or invite unnecessary wastage of resources, for example extra trips to the stadiums, extra postponements due to weather.
While I agree that the tournaments should be held in a more professional way, it is our current culture of doing things fast and OTs which shaped the tournaments.
If our Singapore culture allows space or laidback, in the corporate world, without the stigma and all then I think the tournaments will be organized on a professional level.
The system encourages money and profits, not development and social well-being.
As for athletes, some might prefer a one day event as they might have other commitments not related to the sports they are involved in.
Just my opinion.
The system is definitely poor. No wonder I don’t see any athlete friends have a football/basketball “season” or anything. Its just one week of all competition. Maybe their excuse for wanting to finish it quick is academics but surely, if a player wants to make the team, he has to learn to manage his time?
IVP and POL-ITE should be spread out, especially team sports.
Train, compete, rest, study.
Repeat cycle over four months.
Life is more balanced that way and it treats student athletes better that way.
Squeezing everything into two weeks is developmentally unsound, especially for team sports.
Uncle Les, you are right! I precisely think that it isn’t a good thing to cram fixtures for a whole season into a few days. The possibility of getting injuries will be higher and also the athletes won’t have enough time to get plenty of rest after each competition. The performance for next competition won’t be that good compared to the previous due to lack of rest for old injuries to heal and energy needed to give their 100%!
I think that a feedback should be submitted up to this organising committees.
EXACTLY, everything is so congested that if you wanna catch POL-ITE rugby you would have to forgo floorball, or some other event on going. What’s the point of organizing the events if the intention is to get it over with.
Good article- real shame to know that this is happening
I think the schedule for tournament should be spread over a longer period of time. For example POLITE netball, a school competes 3 days a week, Mon, Wed and Fri. For Tues and Thurs, the netballers need to choose between rest or spend the day correcting their mistakes. Neither option is a good option. You choose the former, you probably will get more scolding (from your coach) in the next game for making the same mistakes again. You choose the latter, you increase the risk of yourself getting injuried (Can you imagine yourself playing netball for 5 consecuetive days of netball?)
From a point of view of audience, the games are too crammed together to catch any game. If you are unlucky that you are busy for the week that the games are played, you miss 9 games in total. This is as good as missing more than half the tournament when we are complaining that no one watch the games.
I think having 4 games played per week would be a better option.