Each of us was assigned a project, which we had to complete and submit at the end of the camp. Hence, each of us were presented with a camera at the opening dinner, and we snapped up pictures wherever we went.

It was truly fascinating to discover and learn about our different cultures and countries from the other young reporters around the world. I did not realize that Cayman Island actually existed till then! I learnt about Croatia and their seaports. I learnt about Cyprus and their extremely hot weather which made me stop complaining about Singapore’s weather! I also learnt about their unique festivals and practices. Those were indeed, an eye-opener for me. In exchange, I thought them how to use chopsticks. That was another hilarious moment we shared. They were good, grabbing peanuts with their newly acquired skill minutes after being taugh.! Best of all, I succeeded alongside my Singaporean counterparts in imparting our “Singlish” to them. Not long after, everyone was inserting the famous “lah”, “hor”, and “meh”  in their sentences, producing something that sounded like a perfect sentence, followed by a pause and an abrupt “lah” at the end.

I recall the last week of the camp during which I stayed over in NacLi. Racing to complete our projects, we would all gather outside our rooms where the Internet was readily available. Sometimes, when we got tired after long hours on the computer, we would snack, listen to music, play a round or two of games and just chill out. It was tough working on the project when the Internet kept disconnecting, when pictures could not be uploaded and when many a times, a few had to re-do their entire project. However, we continued to urge and encourage each other. Frankly, this project pretty much drained us of our energy but it was something we had to complete so we pressed on.

After spending so many wonderful days with them, saying good-bye seemed impossible. It was really difficult. Teary-eyed, I bid farewell to them and that was the last we saw each other. On another note, all of us refused to believe that we would never see each other again and so we promised each other that we would meet again one day, somewhere in the middle of this world! Looking back, we had treasured our days together knowing that the camp would not last forever. We had spent every opportunity we had to find out more about each other and we definitely did make the best out of everything we did. I truly miss them!

Those days spent with them were more than I could ever ask for and I want to take this opportunity to thank my teachers who had given me this wonderful opportunity! My life would be so different now, if not for this amazing bunch of friends.

***

It is easy to see why so many people are fans of Michael Phelps. We humans have this obsession with the idea of victory and he, quite simply, is the epitome of triumph. The triumph of motion as he thrusts through water with the power of a torpedo, the triumph of one man against his rivals as they try in vain to catch up, and the triumph of the possible over the impossible as he breaks one record after another. The memory of his amazing gold-medal swim in the 2008 Beijing Olympics would have been no doubt etched into the retinas of millions of people worldwide. To many, he is the ultimate Olympic hero. 

To me, however, an Olympic hero takes its shape in the form of last-place finishers as much as it does in gold medal winners. A true hero is not the athlete that runs the fastest, jumps the highest, plays the best, but one that stays true to the ethos of the Olympics; one that possesses the Olympic spirit. 

The Olympic spirit is about a different sort of triumph; not about the triumph of motion, strength or grace, but about the triumph of the human spirit. It is not about the bronze, silver, gold; the medals, results and glory, but about the head, heart and soul. It is about respect for sport, about the dignity of competing and the willingness to give your very all. 

  Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics, summed it up the best. He said, “The important thing is not to win, but to take part”. 

When Eric Moussambani swam for Equatorial Guinea at the 2000 Olympics, he didn’t win. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. He gained entry into the Olympics without meeting the minimum qualifications via a wild card draw designed to help developing countries participate. Before the race, Moussambani had never seen a fifty metre Olympic-sized pool in his life. He took up swimming only eight months before the event and trained back home in a tiny hotel pool – when there were no guests.

In his 100 metre heat, the two other competitors from Niger and Tajikistan were both disqualified for false starts, so he swam alone against the clock. This was the first time that he had ever swum a full 100 metre race – something the crowd immediately suspected. He swam awkwardly – with his head out of the water and his legs barely kicking. In his first lap, he was clearly struggling. In his second lap, he was nearly drowning, and everyone was wondering if he could even complete the race. But he was fighting with everything he had.

At the turn, the 18 thousand strong crowd began to roar in unison and with each stroke, the noise got louder and louder. Twenty metres from the finish mark, Moussambani was hardly moving, but with the crowd urging him on, he literally inched towards the finish. He finally hit the wall, sending the crowd into a delirium of ecstasy. The mad cheering and stomping by the crowd all but lifted the roof off the stadium.

His time of one minute and fifty-two seconds was a minute slower than all his competitors. It was even slower than what some swimmers took to swim 200 metres. But did all that matter? Eric had given an honest effort and done his very best.  Most of all,  he dared to compete despite knowing that he had no chance of winning. He had put up an incredible display of the Olympic spirit.

Another athlete who showed this incredible spirit was Luvsanlkhundeg Otgonbayar, the sole female marathoner who represented Mongolia in the 2004 Olympics. It was a scorching 35 degrees Celsius during the race, and many top athletes (including record holder Paula Radcliffe)  had abandoned the race or simply given up. But not Otgonbayar, for she simply insisted on carrying on despite the searing heat and brutal hills of the course. By 10 p.m., the race wasn’t a race at all. In fact, the organizers were already preparing the stadium for the closing ceremony when she trotted into the stadium at an infinitesimal pace. By that time, Japan’s Mizuki Noguchi already finished the race an hour earlier. However, with the crowd cheering her on, she went on to complete the race 3:48:42, half an hour behind the second-slowest competitor. Otgonbayar, the daughter of camel and sheep herders, gave the thumbs up to a couple of journalists after the race. “Even if I finished last, it was all right, because I still finished and many people, even famous people, didn’t do that.” she said with a satisfied smile.

These two stories serve to remind us that true Olympic spirit is often found away from the breed of gold medallists wrapped up in lucrative sponsorship deals, whose faces are plastered on billboards around the world. It is those who give everything they have, even if they ultimately finish last that are the ones that truly personify the Olympic spirit. After all, the greatest glory comes not from winning, but from the pride of partaking in this glorious sporting event, from living the Olympic dream. 

After all, the Olympics is no ordinary event. It represents so much more than 16 days of running, jumping and swimming.

The Olympics is a toast to humanity. It brings out the best, and the worst in human nature. It uplifts, and crushes us at times. The Olympics unites; it brings people closer together through the love of sport. A great victory, a great hero, a great team,  becomes a shared experience for everyone watching. There are few events that can unite people the same way the Olympics can.

The Olympics is a living soap opera, each time conjuring fables of worthy heroes and deserving villains, moments of triumph and heartbreak, parables of victory and defeat. At the heart of these all this is the Olympic spirit; for only true Olympic spirit can inspire tales of passion, courage and dignity. 

Sport can be painful, and the Olympics is the ultimate theatre of suffering, physically and emotionally.Without suffering  there would be so such thing as the Olympics. Nevertheless, we should be thankful about the agony and hardship that Olympics can bring, for it is only in this struggle  that sport can reveal an athlete’s true colours. After all,  the Olympics is not merely an examination of how good you are at running, jumping or swimming. The Olympics Games are a test of character and sheer will,  in the last strides of the mile race when your oxygen debt feels unrepayable, in that moment where your body starts to rebel against your mind during the uphill finish of a marathon, in that instant when ball meets boot in the last kick of the football game. 

Whether you are a gold medallist, or a failed qualifier, it is this knowledge that you laid down everything you had during these fleeting moments that make your own Olympic tale something so perfect, tragic, and heroic.

When all is said and done, it is the tales that will stay in our hearts when everything else is long forgotten.   

45 NJCians and 4 students from Hwa Chong Institution took local sporting excellence to an international level by representing Singapore in the 9^th World Dragon Boat Racing Championship Junior category in Racice, Prague, Czech Republic from the 26^th to 29^th of August, taking on the massive challenge of fighting for the World Junior Dragon Boat Championship title.  This is the first time Singapore was represented at the World Dragon Boat Racing Championship, an equivalence of the World Cup in soccer.

The team took part in 11 events, ranging from sprint distances of 200m and 500m to longer distances of 1000m and 2000m.  After 4 days of tough competition through the various heats, semis and finals, the Singapore Junior Dragon Boat Team,  won 4 golds, 3 silvers and 1 bronze to clinch the World Junior Dragon Boat Champion title .

In order to give our team the maximum amount of time to prepare for their upcoming examinations, we arrived in Prague only a day before the start of the races and managed only 1 short practice session at Racice. Poorly rested and not yet acclimatised, we had a disastrous first day of competition (26^th August) in the 2,000 m races. Though we won a silver medal and a bronze medal for the Junior Women 2,000m and Junior Open 2,000m races respectively, we were very disappointed with our performance particularly with coming in 5^th place in the Junior Mixed 2,000 race. It was fortunate for us that 2,000m races would not contribute any points towards the overall challenge title because turnings were involved in 2,000m races and only straight-course races (i.e. 1,000m, 200m and 500m) would contribute points.

Our team responded with greater focus, discipline and hunger the following day (27 August), but luck was against us when we came in a very disappointing 5^th placing yet again in the Junior Open 1,000m event final where the 6 boats came within 0.7 of a second, a close finish, the likes of which we had never seen before in 1,000m races back in Singapore. Everyone in our Junior Open squad gave their very best, but we only managed a 5^th placing. Before our arrival in Prague, we knew little about our opponents. We then began to realise how tough our competition was. However, our fortune turned in the afternoon when we won the Junior Mixed 1,000m event. There was a strong wave of national pride and emotions, as we sang our national anthem passionately as our Singapore flag was hoisted to the top of the flag pole. This was the first time Singapore had taken part and won a gold medal in the World Dragon Boat Racing Championship. We were 1 point behind Poland and 1 ahead of defending champion Germany for the overall challenge title after this day.

Riding on the wave of renewed belief and confidence, our team went on to win 2 golds and 1 silver in 3 events on the 3^rd day (28^th August) - the Junior Mixed 200m, the Junior Open 200m and the Junior Women 200m respectively. Our team’s tough training regime and good physical conditioning really did us a big favour, as the number of races (2 to 3 rounds of races per event) and the hot weather took their toll on our opponents. We gained a massive 30 points and had a 15-point lead over Germany and 19-point lead over Poland after this day.

Needing only 8 points to win the overall title, we decided to focus on the Junior Open 500m and Junior Women 500m events on the final day (29^th August) and send mainly our reserves and younger (Sec 3 and Sec 4) members for the Junior Mixed 500m. Though our Junior Open and Junior Women squads met with very stiff opposition to emerge only 4^th and 2^nd respectively, we secured enough points to win the overall title before the final event, the Junior Mixed 500m event. However, the whole championship took yet another twist when our Junior Mixed 500m squad making up of mainly reserves and younger, less experienced members, exceeded all expectations and shocked the sporting elite by storming to victory in the final. There could not have been a better way to end the championship than by being able to sing our nation anthem again before being presented the overall challenge trophy. The atmosphere was awe-inspiring and electrifying with our entire team singing the nation anthem at the top of their voices. We are the World Junior Dragon Boat Champions.

We hope that we have managed to prove to all Singaporeans that though we may be a small country with few resources, we are capable of great things if we are united, disciplined, tough and hungry. Cheers to our beloved Singapore!

9^th World Dragon Boat Racing Championship

Junior Divisional Nation Cup Points Tally

1^st: Singapore     69 points

2^nd: Germany      49 points

3^rd: Canada        45 points

4^th: China           37 points (beat Poland in 500m performance)

5^th: Poland          37 points

Medal Tally

                        Gold          Silver        Bronze

Singapore          4              3              1

Czech Republic    3              0              0

China                 2              1              3

Canada              1              1              3

Poland               1              0              0

Germany            0              3              3

Russia                0              2              0

Great Britain       0              0              2

Note: The point table and the medal table don’t tally because medals are awarded for 2,000m but not points and also points are awarded for non-medal positions.

Event Timings

Junior Women 2,000m
Gold : Czech Republic : 9.41.57
Silver : SINGAPORE    : 9.43.13
Bronze : China          : 9.52.20

Junior ‘A’ Open 2,000m
Gold    : Czech Republic : 8.53.24
Silver   : Canada          : 9.12.78
Bronze : SINGAPORE     : 9.15.57

Junior Mixed 1,000m
Gold    : SINGAPORE : 4.18.46
Silver   : China        : 4.18.59
Bronze : Germany    : 4.20.02
Junior Mixed 200m
Gold    : SINGAPORE       : 0.51.488
Silver   : China              : 0.51.841
Bronze : United Kingdom : 0.52.073

Junior Women 200m
Gold    : China         : 0:52.407
Silver   : SINGAPORE : 0:53.965
Bronze : Australia      : 0:55.046

Junior Open 200m
Gold    : SINGAPORE : 0.46.613
Silver  : Russia        : 0.49.021
Bronze : Germany    : 0.49.279

Junior Women 500m
Gold    : China            : 2:12:177
Silver  : Canada          : 2:16.562
Bronze : SINGAPORE    : 2:17.015

Junior Mixed 500m
Gold    : SINGAPORE : 2.09.834
Silver   : Germany    : 2.10.017
Bronze : China         : 2.10.577

The first Asian Youth Games was held in July this year and I had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of it. Although our role as Student Liason Officers was deemed as pretty insignificant to some, we took great pride in undertaking our responsibility. We ensured that the team got to their venue on time and had a pleasant time here in Singapore whilst competing in the AYG. There were some break down in communication at times, but thankfully they were not too major and did not cause much trouble.

Other than taking care of the team’s welfare, we immersed ourselves deeply into the booths set up by various schools at the Cultural Centre. The booths changed every other day such that by the end of the AYG, every country would be featured. I have to admit, it was precisely because of these cultural booths that I learned of the existence of some countries previously unknown to me. I have also gained more knowledge about our fellow Asian countries. I have concurred that Asia no longer consists of the 20 odd countries I knew, but in fact is made up of a lot more countries.

All in all, I really enjoyed being a part of the AYG2009. It was an immensely enriching experience.

- Chang Wen Jia

This AYG experience has been meaningful and a good exposure. Firstly, we had a chance to experience how a global event is organised and carried out. From that it made me realise the many considerations when planning an event like that and the need for effective  communication for things to run smoothly.

On a lighter note, this event was fulfilling as it was a once in a life time opportunity. It gave me a sense of pride that I am helping out with the world’s first AYG. Through this event, I was able to interact with youths our age of other countries. Even though there were language barriers, we still attempted to strike simple talk with questions such as their opinion of their stay in Singapore etc. Those moments were enjoyable and almost comical.

The part which I like about most is the booths about the various participating countries set up by the secondary school students. Through that I managed to grasp a better understanding of the culture of different countries. It gave me more confidence in approaching countries which I previously do not know much about.

Also, because I am a sportsman, I had great interest in watching how teams prepare themselves before the match and their reaction with the outcome of their event. I admired the competitive spirit which the athletes have and the paramount of confidence which they have in them that helps them come back on top from a losing game.

- Tay Kai Xun

The combined dance ensemble is made up of dancers from National Junior College (NJC), Raffles Junior College, Anglo-Chinese Junior College as well as the alumni team from National Junior College, current students of National University of Singapore. Our choreographer Mr Peter Gn specially auditioned dancers for this item and it was vetted by the organizing committee of YOG.

We feel very privileged to be part of this dance ensemble and it was definitely worth all our efforts and time put in place in preparation of the performance. In fact, for the Western Dancers of NJC, this YOG countdown performance was another national platform we participated in this year, following the Asian Youth Games (AYG) Opening Ceremony performance on 29 August 2009. Indeed, we took great pride and honour to play such important roles representing Singapore for both events.

The YOG countdown performance gave us a lot of opportunities to mingle with fellow talented dancers from other schools and be able to exchange dance styles with each other. The two-practices-a-week held at CCAB gave us the opportunity to make many new and good friends as we were given many chances to interact with dancers from other schools. On top of this, the performance we put up was very memorable in many ways.  It was a great experience to dance in front of the Old Supreme Court, right before thousands of live audiences. For us dancers, we learnt a lot about teamwork amongst ourselves because each of us plays an equally important role in making the dance a successful one. Only when we work together as a team and support one another do we bring out the true spirit of dance and represent the energy of the athletes of YOG!

- Sherryn Tham

What is your opinion of the current level of olympism in Singapore?

(On the level of sports) The level of sports is generally improving in certain sports like sailing, bowling, table tennis and golf. However this improvement is only evident in certain sports. Why is that so? Track has been stagnant or even going down. On a school level, track is doing well. Some schools which regard track as a niche area have extra resources devoted to track. However, there may be other talents who are left out in this process, those who aren’t in these schools. Hence we are not completely mobilizing these talents and our small country is losing talent.

(On Olympism in Singapore)

This has almost never been discussed. Is it unfair? There is not enough spirit and sportsmanship amongst athletes who claim they are Olympians. Role models are not being role models. Olympism is there, but there is a greater purpose- it is not just about winning and sports, it is about educating youths via Olympism through sports and in fact, every cca.

Are there any Olympians or idols in this sense in Singapore?

We just formed the Olympian Association. There might be Olympians, but we aren’t using them so we should start spreading the word and getting people to know about Olympism. We should also start acknowledging these people.

Our track team in NJ lacks motivation. How do you think we can go about solving that?

You must know two things- physiology of the event and your body. Train them up together- your psychology and physical. Know your body well so when you go for training, you will know what parts of your body you are training. Everyone can train and work their body together in this process. You also have to analyse- what is lacking in the team? There is a list of test you can take and chart your development as an athlete and as a team.

What do you think of the sports scene in Singapore?

At the end of 2007 there was a committee formed: Sporting Cultural Committee where it pushed through 43 strategies and 23 recommendations in the MCYS. There was also the COSS Report in 2002 which gave rise to the Singapore Sports School. All of these are steps we are taking to improve and groom sport talents in Singapore. There are two steps in making sports a culture in Singapore. Firstly, we have to bring in the people, the athletes. Secondly, we have to bring in the people to watch. The presence of an audience gives the players support and encouragement. You have to give them reasons to play sports, sometimes. A lot of athletes stop by the adulthood because they can’t continue. We could, say, give them scholarships to those who have become champions to help them? So they can go to university and still study.

The Olympic Pathway Programme is also an example of an association looking out for talents. Associations need to do proper talent scouting. Even in school, we must have teachers stepped in Track and Field who will dedicatedly look out for potential sportsmen.

The 1st inaugural Asian Youth Games in Singapore came to a spectacular end on the 7 of July 2009 with 1300 athletes from 43 countries competing for top honours in their respective sports.

National Junior College was involved in the Games as volunteers and Liaison Officers to the visiting countries. Our NOC country was Malaysia. The NOC had scheduled to arrive with close to a hundred athletes, forming one of the biggest contingents for the Games.

However, things took a turn when the young athletes were advised to stay in their country amidst the fear of the H1N1 flu pandemic that is occurring around the world. In the end, only the soccer team and 2 sailors arrived to compete in the games.