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Ah, Singaporeans are 'more sporty' now

The ST tells us today that a Sports Council survey shows that we are 'more sporty' than we were five years ago.

I would agree that exercising for health or for fun is infinitely more important than all that 'sports excellence' stuff. But more people jogging or doing yoga is one thing; sporting achievement is another. So we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that we can really make it on the world sporting scene.

Anyway, we are also told that 'Sports TV viewership slips 9%'. Should that be a surprise to anyone? The main TV channels are down to almost zero for sports coverage and everyone knows that not everyone subscribes to cable sports channels.

And this guy said this about the swim meet I mentioned in my last post: 'During the Asia Swimming Championships, most of the finals were held between 5.30pm and 8pm. And being at Woodlands, it made it tough for people to be out there.' Hmmm... what's wrong with 5.30-8pm? And if sports spectators can fly from Perth to Melbourne, or, indeed, from London to Melbourne, why can't people take the bus or train or drive to Woodlands? Which, in fact, many do anyway (i.e. drive to Woodlands) and brave traffic jams to buy cheaper groceries in JB.

Well, I must say well done, the two teenage shooters, home-grown talent, who won team and individual medals at the Commonwealth Games. Good show, Vanessa Yong and Zhang Jin! By the way, Zhang Jin's name makes it seem like he's foreign talent but I'm told he's a true blue Singaporean.

It shows that shooting is one sport in which, theoretically, we can make it on the world scene. Physical size doesn't matter, and I guess you don't need much strategy for it, so surely some people can train really, really hard and become really, really skilful at it. And we have a big pool of potential shooters, what with so many being in NCC or NPCC and all the young (and older) men in the army.

Comments

Wormie said…
Zhang Jin is indeed true-blue Singaporean. Check out bio-data from the Melbourne 2006 site under athlete section. The whole female badminton team is made up of 5 co-opted Singaporeans
Anonymous said…
Hello Wormie!

Ah, well, hurray for all the true blues, then! Including the gold medal shooter, On Shaw Ming.

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