23rd SEA Games Manila 2005

ok the SEA games have been over for quite a period of time, and only till now do i have the time to pen down some of my thoughts about it all...anyway here are the 5 things that caught my eyes the most

1. Tao Li of swimming. in case you start wondering why her name is so short, she comes from china. well this girl is muscular...is this a trait of all butterfly swimmers? And you can roughly guess her age by what she does: she will make faces at the camera...haha...what really caught my eye about her was that she has that confident aura about her...a bit like lance armstrong...and thats what athletes need...a sort of arrogance in the correct way...and her results does prove her confidence...3 individual gold medals…2 in backstroke and 1 in butterfly...the backstroke times broke the sea games records...how about that for a 14 year old?

2. Tay Xi Hui Nicole of gymnastics. my goodness this is really touching. fell down from the balance beam three times! for 2 of the falls, i think her hip hit the beam...it was solid wood against bone...real painful...after the 3rd fall, you can see her clenching her little fists...and the tears were about to burst out of her eyes...and she still went on to complete her routine...thats really the perfect example of mental strength and 100% concentration on a specific task...she could have just walked out but she still hung on! And heres the most amazing thing! Not long after her falls, she picked herself up from the physical and mental pain to complete the floor exercise with a gold medal performance! That’s exceptional mental strength for a 12 year old *as a member of sports ccas, i start to wonder whether i can do the same...hmm only when a similar situation befalls me will I know, I guess...touch wood actually…however, in sport, failure is a way of life*

3. Yeo Wei Ling Joscelin of swimming. once you see the name, theres not much i need to say right? once you see the name on the start list for individual events, you are almost 50% sure that she will clinch the gold medal...as for relays, these are team efforts so there is no guarantee winning even though shes in the team...and guess what? all her individual victories are quite straightforward...it wont be a thriller finish or what...what impressed me about her at this games…there was the 4X100 m medley relay and joscelin was in charge of the third leg which was the butterfly…from almost no lead, she opened up singapore’s lead to about 3 body lengths, leaving the last swimmer with a pretty simple task…she is just so powerful…

4. Young Lions of…obviously…soccer…these are the statisitics...no medal of any colour since 1995...no gold medal ever since singapore ever started taking part in sea games...out at the group stage for 3 consecutive times...in short ever since sea games became an u-23 tournament we have never got past the group stages...actually the young lions didn’t really catch my eye at this games…its just that for every sea games, the sport that I will be the most concerned about will be soccer…anyway, the teams preparation was ok…but then come the tournament, they just couldn’t score!…especially the Indonesia match…so many gilt-edged chances…it was the same thing at the 2003 sea games…guess we have to work on shooting…and also one factor for the failure was the under-performance of some players…no choice I guess…maybe raddy should have used the other players instead of keeping faith with the more experienced but under-performing for the tournament…

5. Live Our Dreams by Kit Chan (the theme song for this SEA Games)…hehe…the song itself is so touching…and everytime they like to fit in the videos of our athletes together with the song…makes it even more touching…everytime I see the video I will feel like crying…maybe its because I am involved in sports in some way myself…that’s why the song is more close to my heart

alright…that’s all for the sea games!