Monday, February 20, 2006

Is This How They Promote Sports Excellence In Singapore?

I am so proud. Yesterday, my son partnered his 16-year old classmate from ACS(I) to emerge first in the junior section (under 18) of the National Kayak Marathon 2006. In the process, they beat several teams of older boys from the junior colleges.

So you can understand my disappointment when I could not find a single paragraph about the event in the 5 full pages of today's Straits Times Sports Section. They even had room for a lengthy report about the likely identities of 2 gay English Premiership footballers, but they cannot fine the space to report on a national level local sport event.

I wrote to them to complain but I doubt they will publish my letter.

The TODAY was slightly better. They had a report of the event with a photo of the male winners in the senior section. But nearly the entire report was devoted to the guest-of-honour's speech, with only 1 paragraph explaining the event towards the end. Right at the very end, there was 1 sentence giving the names of the male and female winners of the main event.

I think that if they want to promote sports excellence in Singapore, they should do more to encourage our young athletes as well as their parents.

9 comments:

Shaun said...

Chun See congrats on your son's win. Pity bout the papers though.

Chris Sim said...

Don't let you boy's happiness, and yours too, be foiled by the lack of ST's coverage. After all, his victory is all that matters, is it not? Congrats to the boy and the beaming Dad!

By the way, I tot you mentioned you were just taking a break from nostalgia in your previous post? It seems this is "nostalgia break" number 2. ROTFL.

Lam Chun See said...

This one not a proper blog article. More like off the cuff remarks. Some of Victor's comments are longer. Hehe.

Victor said...

But I never profess to be a full-time nostalgic blogger leh. :) So I am free to blog what I like, until I feel happy to go back to being a sentimental fool again.

Congrats to your son on winning the Kayak competition Chun See. Maybe it's the good genes that you gave him hor. LOL. And congrats on being an encouraging dad too. I am sure your son appreciates your blog article even more than any article ST could write about him.

Anonymous said...

Congrats Chun See. Great news about your son.

This is one reason why I think blogging is important. It's a way to publish the news that's important to you without having to rely on the mainstream media.

Lionel Tan said...

Congrats! I never good in sport =(

oceanskies79 said...

Congratulations to your son.

I agree with your last paragraph. Meantime, let's give the mainstream media more time to catch up on it.

Chen said...

A sincere congrats from me :)

Lam Chun See said...

I think the father's role in motivating the son is very imp. For the past 2 years, I have been taking time off from work to video the interschool kayaking championship. Then I make copies for his team mates. Altho he doesn't say it, I can see he is very appreciative. His teacher too seemed glad to see me.

The ACS (I) team has an excellent coach/teacher. Very dedicated. And has passion for the sport.