9th Dragon Boat World Championships

[restorotser]

I'd like to congratulate all the rowers in the National team and also the junior team for making sacrifices to earn glory for the country. You've really done the nation proud! I believe this may be the best showing Singapore has ever had in the international dragon boat scene. What’s more notable is based on what I've found, most or all the rowers are local Singaporeans and this should serve as a great inspiration to us and our younger generation to not only excel in academics but also in the sporting arena.

Regarding the lack of publicity of this achievement, I believe we should not be complacent about this. All this while, Singapore has only just begun to make great achievement in the area of dragon boating, first in Putrajaya by the senior national team and now in Prague. Furthermore, dragon boating had a rough start to begin with when people first began to take notice of it from the media coverage of the dragon boat tragedy in Cambodia. Thus, I don't believe we can ask for or enjoy the same fanfare and publicity that the more established sports in Singapore such as table tennis or badminton have in Singapore. This event will turn heads but I believe it is the consistency in achievement that will bring dragon boating further in Singapore seeing the meritocratic nature of our society. This cannot be achieved simply by these rowers alone who have paved a way for dragon boating in Singapore to get its name noticed but it is the concerted effort of the whole dragon boating community to support the progress of dragon boating in Singapore, by supporting our national team to continue to make achievements in the international dragon boat scene.

I have read the article posted by Ken Nerve, along with several articles from redsports, as well as the article in response to this article by Dennis Tan, http://redsports.sg/2009/09/03/singapore-airlines-sponsorship-dragon-boaters/ and I would like to voice some of my comments.

Regarding SIA sponsoring a national team of another country and not our own, while it is a multi-national company and is capable of making such a sponsorship, I do believe they should have seen this possibility that our own national team would take part in such a competition and conduct the necessary research before carrying out such an action. On this note, I do believe SIA has made a blunder. While there are those that are understanding such as the response written in the link, there are many others who have made comments to express their frustration towards SIAs action. This issue could have been avoided if SIA took more care in making its decision. Still, it is my hope that this issue will not be blown out of proportion. In the end, it is not SIAs job to make sponsorships and it plays a vital role in Singapores economic progress in the airliner industry.

Regarding the response by Mr Dennis Tan, I admire his willingness to make such sacrifices and I believe it is not without great pain that he has done so. I don't believe he is the only parent who has made such sacrifices; the parents of the other rowers would likely have had to make similar sacrifices as well. This clearly shows to us, not only in dragon boating but in everything we do, that success comes with sacrifice, it is such spirit that all Singaporeans should be proud of and learn to emulate. To Mr Dennis Tan and all parents of the dragon boaters, kudos to you all!

This is just my response to what I have seen in the media and remember that in the end, I am still just a third party making his thoughts heard.

[crimson]

I think it would be great if someone who went to Prague give us additional accounts of what happened there. Josie wrote of her experience on redsports, but she was mainly with the junior team. Her account was very "official", plus it would be good to hear from the senior team.

I'm sure everyone's dying to know more about the trip and race.

[theguy]

(In response to crimson)

I believe that my experience in prague was the most exciting and memorable one ever. As a junior member of the Singapore youth dragonboat team, it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent Singapore to take part in the World Dragon Boat Championships. To be honest, I did not believe that we could actually win the championship at the start of the race as we were facing against teams like Russia and Germany who were much stronger than us. However, we still went all out and were merely doing what we did during training back in Singapore.

I feel that what contributed to our success would be the discipline, teamwork, unselfishness and endurance of the members in our team. Without that, I believe that it is not possible for us to have won. For the races, I feel that some were good but others were not. I had still remembered the Junior Open 1000m event, it was really very disappointing as the first and last boats have only a difference of 0.7 seconds, it was almost like we all came in at the same time but it turned out that we were only 5th. However, we did not gave up hope and still continued to give our best for each race and therefore, we managed to win most of the subsequent races. What was most memorable to me was the Mixed Junior 500m race when we sent mainly our juniors and reserves down to row, which was after the Junior Open and Junior Women 500m who came in only 4th and 2nd respectively. Being the last race, our Junior Mixed Boat gave all that we could and managed to come in first, we were so happy and shocked after that when the officials announced the results and some of us even cried in joy!

I believe that without everyone's effort and hard work, this would not have been successful. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank teams like Mountbatten, NUS, NTUC, Kiyah, safsa and the National Senior Team for pacing with our team in our preparation for the race.