Why Singaporeans can't be bothered about Youth Olympics?
What are some of the reasons?
Singapore unmoved by throws
of youth
By Stanislaus Jude Chan
SINGAPORE - Just a month after the buzz from the vuvuzelas ended at
the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, Singapore is busy
preparing to host the next major event in the world sports calendar
- the Youth Olympic Games. But few seem to know, or care, about the
inaugural youth version of the venerable Olympic
Games.
An online survey by state-controlled media Channel News Asia
found that 88% of 6,430 respondent said they were "not interested
at all" in watching any of the action at the International
Olympic Committee event
for athletes between 14 and 18 years old.
"It's obvious that the
Singapore government knows very little about what the sports world
wants, and even less about its marketing," says opposition
politician Dr Chee Soon Juan. "The public wants to watch top
athletes in their prime in action, not when they are still in the
process of getting there."
The Games are "a waste of
time", says Malcolm Hoe, a 26-year-old undergraduate. "I'd rather
stay at home and watch the English Premier League on
television."
Some 5,000 athletes and
officials from more than 200 countries are expected in this city
state of 5 million people for the Games that start on Saturday and
run to August 26.
"The Singapore government is
spending all this money on an experimental event that has turned
out to be one that few care about," says Chee. "In contrast we
spend about 100 million [Singapore] dollars [US$74.2 million] on
the needy in Singapore."
The initial $75 million
budget for the Youth Olympic Games - one of the reasons Singapore
held the edge over Moscow in the race to host them - has been blown
out of the water. The organizing committee announced in July that
projected government spending for the 13-day Games will now be
approximately $287 million.
Niam Chiang Meng, permanent
secretary of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and
Sports (MCYS), admitted to being "a bit naive with our initial
estimates".
With the MCYS also in charge
of welfare and social schemes, critics like Leong Sze Hian question
if the government "could have spent the money to help Singapore's
pathetic - almost non-existent - social welfare system"
instead.
"Only 3,000 people are on
the Public Assistance scheme, which pays a paltry $360 a month,"
says Leong, past president of the Society of Financial Service
Professionals. It was "last disclosed in parliament that, in a
year, 50% of applicants were rejected," he adds.
"As to how much of the
benefits [reaped from the Youth Olympic Games] will trickle down to
citizens, we don't know because whatever cost-benefit analysis, if
one was done, is not made public," says Leong.
Youth Olympic Games
organizers also received flak from the public over the
inconvenience to be expected from the designation of lanes along
seven expressways and 15 arterial roads for the Games. Motorists
who fail to give way to Olympic vehicles will be fined
$97.
Even accommodation for youth
athletes at the Games has been the subject of
outcry.
"I used to have hostel
accommodation, but was forced to move out to let the athletes take
my room," posts one undergraduate, 'Darren', on an Internet
website. To accommodate the Games, he claims he now has to travel
some two-and-a-half hours each day to get to his university campus
located at the western end of Singapore.
Still, some believe that the
"prospective prestige of this global event" will prevail. "It's
also an excellent platform to showcase our up-and-coming athletes
as well as our organizational capabilities," says Aaron Wong, a
27-year-old teacher.
Adrian Heng, a senior public
relations consultant, says he does not envy the Games' organizing
committee, which has to achieve the "expectations of a nation that
has become used to high standards of everything".
Despite big-money efforts to
market Singapore as a regional sporting hub - with the
establishment of the Singapore Sports School, the hosting of the
world's first Formula 1 night race, and now the Youth Olympic Games
- it is seeing one of the worst slumps in local support for
sports.
For some fans, Singapore's
decision to pull out from the Malaysia Cup football competition in
1994 marked the start of the demise in Singaporeans' interest in
local sports. The
problem, some say, is compounded by the government's policy of
offering citizenship to foreign athletes to don national
colors.
Citizens called it a "hollow victory"
when the Singapore's women's table tennis team trounced China to
win the republic's first world crown in the sport. All three
members of the Singaporean team - Feng Tianwei, Wang Yuegu and Sun
Beibei - were born in China.
Half of Singapore's football team are
naturalized citizens, originally from countries including Brazil,
Croatia, China and Nigeria. In 2009, nearly half of the players in
the national rugby team went on strike to protest management's
preferential treatment toward expatriate players. Interestingly,
the 30-man squad consisted of only 13 local
players.
"I think Singapore is being
typically pragmatic in bringing in foreign talent, but this is
really a microcosm of a wider social issue. You have to bring in
the talent, but still give opportunities to locals," says Wong.
"And this is part of a wider issue - the overriding importance of
education in Singapore as opposed to alternative careers in
sports."
Hoe says he has fond
memories of watching Singapore's teams play against countries like
Malaysia at the National Stadium, but "what's there to support now, when
our national teams are not even made up of
Singaporeans?"
(Inter Press
Service)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/LH11Ae01.html
