Singapore, Wednesday, September 15, 2010 — A biennial Singapore Games is slated to take off in 2012 to maintain the momentum generated by the Youth Olympic Games.
“Through the Biennial Singapore Games, we can create a platform that can bring sporting talents and community sports participation from across Singapore together. This will involve identifying a number of sports, getting the community to participate in a series of competitions and sporting events, culminating in the Singapore Games every two years,” said Zaqy Mohamad, a member of parliament, who credited his parliamentary colleagues Josephine Teo and Lee Yi Shyan with the idea.
MP Teo Ser Luck, the senior parliamentary secretary for MCYS, had also brought up the Singapore Games in an interview with Red Sports recorded in March 2008.
Teo Ser Luck said then: “That’s why the Singapore Games is important to me, personally. The Singapore Games where you and me, we all can join, we can represent our club, we can represent ourselves, it doesn’t matter. We just go out and have fun, but we compete.”
In his speech during the parliamentary session, MP Zaqy Mohamad was aware of the challenge of holding such an event, but felt that there were benefits to doing so.
“There is merit in doing this. If we look at nations with strong sporting cultures who are able to produce world-class teams – in particular, countries whose population sizes are comparable to Singapore such as Finland, Norway and New Zealand. They have some things in common – a sporting culture that spans families, neighbourhoods, schools and that they also have a strong club culture,” he said.
The Singapore Games, he feels, will help strengthen the relatively weak sports club scene in Singapore.
“Our club networks exist today, but they seem to be fragmented and stronger within the schools and the elite end which are going for medals. There is a gap in between.
There was a recommendation of the Sporting Culture Report in 2008 by MCYS, suggest strengthening the clubs to bridge the gap in mass participation. This is an ideal proposition given the Singapore Games proposal. With the right team (SSC, PA, Schools Conveners and the NSAs), the is scope to align their activities, pool funding and sponsorship support to bring better synergies to the clubs and the sporting calendar,” said the MP.
The MP also suggested the Singapore Games start with 10 to 15 sports and involve the Singapore Sports Council, the respective national sports associations and the People’s Association.
“By harnessing the synergies between the SSC, NSAs and PA’s CSC, we can organize events for these sports in different formats all year round. I recall when I played Rugby in school, competitions were whole year around, 7-a-side tournaments in the early part of the year, 15-a-side mid-year and 10-a-side towards the end of the year. In the same spirit, we can look at different ways to keep the sporting calendar fresh, interesting and engaging,” he said.
The MP also called on the Ministry of Education to open up schools island wide so that there are more sports facilities available.
“I’d like to suggest that MOE re-consider the policy of using school infrastructure in the estates. Make the policy an opt-out scheme rather than an opt-in. So, schools who feel that they have a strong case against opening up their facilities should then explain their case if they choose to opt-out. This is important to promote more ground-up initiatives and grassroots sporting events in the neighbourhoods,” he said.
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