yohmigosh!

just catched the nail biting table tennis girl's gold medal match just now. a pity that we lost, but hey we lost to the world's junior champ! no shame in that, really.

sprouting out from extreme negativity, sporting fever has suddenly gripped singapore as the yog draws to a close. last burst of fire perhaps? or maybe it was due to the performance of our brave young athletes. yes, we may have lost, but given the way those boys and girls went down, i guess they have already proven themselves and demostrated that there is no shame in defeat.

if she continues playing the way she is played tonight, i am sure isabelle li will be a household name come the london olympics.

same for soccer. i have not seen players with as much hunger and perseverance as the young cubs last night for a long time. and what a mixed bag of players: chinese, malay, indian, eurasian. really cmio at work.

and what about darren choy? he's already the world junior champs and he's on his way to an olympic gold!

anyway i am really glad that most of the young athletes were born and bred locals. shows that the government is not just going to import foreign athletes and blatantly buy gold medals.

and what about the volunteers? mostly busy working behind the scenes, i think all 20000 (ok, 19999 excluding me) all deserve gold medals as they were the extra player on the field who ensured that the yog could run smoothly.

oh yeah! oh yeah! oh yeah!

oops i did it again..

supported france for the group stages.
it was england for the round of 16.
then came brazil's turn.
tonight argentina was my latest victim.

who should i support next? =D

clay king

after 11 long months, the king of clay is back!

bravo to rafael nadal, who today reminded us again of his technical superiority, his athletic capabilities, and his thirst for victory. it doesn't get any better than 6-0 6-1. vamos rafa!

arr2010

early morning
not yet daylight
yet something is
abuzz
in the midst of the dead
and the desolate
something is
stirring
from the depths
of the deep west

soon
the sun will rise
birds will chirp
trucks will zoom
and runners will
run
like the wind
like demons possessed
like no tomorrow
for the sake of
duty honour country
platoon company battalion

batons passed
runners passed
soon the blazing sun
in the sky will
make anyone forget
how it was ever dark

all this
will not be lost on
the gods of mindef
who will be running cheering
and assessing
to see if anyone
has the potential
to lead to excel to overcome
to take over
the ultimate baton -
the baton of command

queenie

this year's TdF is like the most exciting yet! after one whole week of nondescript action, the peloton has suddenly exploded with crazy attacks, 20km solo victories and team in-fighting!

anyway looks like today is going to be Frank Frank Frank; its easier for me this year cos i can now root for two teams: saxobank and cervélo! =D

one.five more weeks of intense action..

passing of an era

sorry fed but its been a great 5 years or so. you were once the undisputed king, but now inarguably c'est l'histoire. Vamos Rafa!

gold

For those who do not yet know, Singaporean Paralympian Yip Pin Xiu won our first Paralympics Gold in the 50m backstroke on Monday, smashing the world and Paralympic records along the way. Yaay. It must have been amazing to hear the Majulah Singapura being played at the Water Cube (or at any other Olympic/Paralympic games) for the first time. History in the making.

Pity then, that unlike the Olympics, the Paralympics did not have live coverage on television. Not even when we had a national swimmer in the finals.

Nevermind that, it didn't even make it to the 1opm news; Pin Xiu's against-all-odds victory was reduced to just a mere blurb on the ticker tape on CNA.

And unlike the SGD1million promised to all athletes who obtain an Olympic Gold, Paralympians only stand to gain 10% of what able-bodied athletes can earn.

Which is sad, since a Gold is a Gold and ceteris paribus, I would think that the physically challenged athletes would have to overcome more obstacles to even make it to the starting blocks.

Pin Xiu might not even be able to make it to London in 2012 to defend her title because she suffers from muscular dystrophy.

Nevertheless, let us bask in the moment and rally behind all our Singaporean athletes. They'll be back tomorrow (18 Sep) at Changi T3 on SQ805. I'll be there. Will you?

aviva singapore 70.3

So it turned out that the Nike run last week was not my last race.

The Aviva Singapore 70.3 was, yesterday.

However I participated not as an athlete, but in another capacity, as a bike course referee.

More used to swimming, biking, and running, I found the prospect of patrolling the course on a motorbike to be both relieving and weird at the same time. Heh.

Reached transition at 5 in the morning and as expected it was all wet from the thunderstorm the night before. But it did not seem to dampen any single one of the spirits of the 1000+ athletes as they cheerfully went about prepping themselves up for the race. I managed to catch up with a couple of old friends who I have not seen for a while as well, so it was good.

Went to meet up with my chauffeur for the day, Shaman, then went back to the beach to catch the pro wave start. The sun had just peeped over the horizon and it was shaping up to be a great day.

After some splashing about in the waters of East Coast, waves of triathletes began charging out of T1, looking to get started on their 3-loop, 90km bike ride across Singapore. Time to work, for both them and me!

It was a refreshing experience, both physically and mentally, to be sitting on a motorbike riding alongside the cyclists. While the physical aspect is certainly quite obvious, I found it very interesting to be participating in the race as a third-party official, to look upon the race from a very different angle.

Whilst before I had to contend with the headwinds, yesterday I had to grapple with drafting pelotons seeking solace from the headwinds together. Whilst I once had, as an athlete, to obey by the rules, I had to enforce them yesterday.

This year's bike course was interesting, with the route including both ECP and the West Coast Flyover, in a loop which spanned almost the entire east to west of Singapore. But alas as expected, coming from the Singaporean authorities, only 2 lanes of roads were allowed to be closed, even though there were many other viable traffic detours with full-road closure, which resulted in some very narrow, technical, and dangerous sections.

And of course, drafting.

I did my best at refereeing, most of the times preferring to give warnings rather than pulling out my cards. Of all the rules, drafting and littering were the ones which the most infringed upon. I also had to play the role of bike mechanic, medical liaison, as well as bike marshal as I came across athletes and volunteers who needed my help. And while I felt myself out of water at some of the roles, I did my best to offer my assistance.

Afterall, Ironman is sometimes about dealing with the unexpected.

At the end of the day, I gave out numerous warnings, but zero cards. As an athlete myself, I had been in the competitors' shoes before, and so I understood how terrible it would be for someone else to rain on my parade by giving me a card. Besides, nobody committed a foul bad enough to warrant a card. Apparently most of the people raced clean yesterday, with only one yellow being shown to a racer who drafted persistently even after being warned (given by my fellow referee team mate Alan).

So anyway headed back after most had finished the bike portion and caught the rest of the half-ironman on the sidelines watching people finish. Met up with more familiar faces before heading off for a quick KFC lunch, and then home.

All in all, a great way to spend a Sunday morning; giving back to the sport, as well as learning from one of the world's best Ironman referees, Ross McLennen. =)

one of the perks of the job

For more photos, go here.

sastre sastre sastre

After more than 3 weeks of racing, 20 stages, 84hrs of saddle time and some 3600km later, Carlos Sastre of Team CSC-Saxo Bank looks like the inevitable winner of this year's TdF.

Simply sweet stuff, CSC-Saxo Bank. Completely unrivalled in technical equipment support, team depth and squad strength, it looks likely that it will retain its #1 ProTour ranking for the fourth consecutive year as well.

I remember when the team came to Grenoble for the Dauphiné Libéré. Although the then-CSC did not send in many strong riders, the team still performed credibly with Sastre as team leader. Although they did not win the Libéré in the end, Sastre wily noted that his opposition probably peaked too early, and that after all, his goal was to win the TdF.

Ominous isn't it, that one month later, all his predictions came true.

Anyway, I'm just happy that CSC-Saxo Bank did so well; like many soccer/sports fans can identify, it is a wonderful feeling to see your team kick the ass out of their opponents. And if you've been up close and personal with the riders and ever cycled the same routes, it is even more magical. I'm definitely framing up my autographed CSC shirt and locking up the bidon which Sastre gave me at Grenoble! =)

On the home front, I have been busy busy busy. People to meet, food to eat, and fun to be had. Had not had the time to update this blog but I promise a Zurich race report très bientôt! =P

ironman nice

So it was Ironman Nice once again. Came here as well in 2006 but somehow never managed to race in one of the best Ironman courses in the world. Even Jeff had a word with me there and he threatened to put me in for the race. Luckily I fended him off saying that I had just biked 250km from Gap plus I had no wetsuit. =D

In between all the eating, suntanning and babewatching I found time to do the bike loop 2 days before the race. Apparently the route had changed slightly since 2006 and I got kinda lost on the way out of Nice. But the route was well marked after that and I made the 60km to Le Bar sur Loup with relative ease, where I stopped for a sandwich lunch before the right turn to commence the 21km Gourdon climb.

ironman expo

tanning with letch..

and with the rest of the world

bikes stacked nicely after check in

even a foldable bike!!!

All along the route I met triathletes recce-ing the bike course and some would honk or shout out words of encouragement. Lovely. 2 days later I would be doing the same for them at the transition area. The next 100km passed by pretty quickly and soon I was in Nice with all the crazy traffic again.

Race day. It was la fête de la musique the night before and many of the revellers were still milling about the beaches. Went to the start with Colin and while he prepped for the race start, I went off to do my race crew duties at transition getting up close and personal with all the bling bikes. =P Its impossible to post all the photos here so here's a link to all the bike porn.

At the end of the day, Marcel Zamora scored a hat trick of IM Frances, whilst Martina Dogana claimed her first IM victory. And Colin finished comfortably with 30mins to spare! Hooray to all! =)

pro pen

and they're off!

first swimmer coming in

jaja: the crowd's favourite

the pros coming back and running into T2

there were just these 8 lonely bikes for a long time

this is what i call being prepared

morale booster

colin coming into T2

at the finish

So with the finish of Ironman Nice ended my looong bike/run weekend - 420km on the saddle and 60km of running in 5 days! Took the TGV back the next day, and got to take one of those newfangled multi-seat configuration TERs on the way back from Lyon. =)

dauphiné libéré

In France, there is never a lack of cyclosporting events.

Today, the Dauphiné Libéré came to town. The Libéré is an annual 8-stage road race in the Dauphiné region in France, and is considered to be a important lead up to the Tour de France (TdF) later in July. In fact, most of the TdF winners have won the Libéré at one point or another in their careers.

So anyway after spending 7 days in the grand cols in France, the peloton finally arrived in Grenoble for the finish. And I (with like the rest of the Grenoblois) was there to welcome them.

Team CSC had won the previous stage, and so I was hoping that its form would continue until Grenoble. But alas it was not to be and Valverde from Caisse d'Espagrne took the win, and the yellow jersey overall.

the lead three coming in

ZOOM!

There was nothing much to do after the race so I headed over to the team area. Because of my Cervélo and my jersey, there were quite a few people who thought that I was also a CSC rider! Many just snapped away at my P2C, but one even asked me if he could have my bottle (which was also CSC) as a souvenir. The cheek of him! =P

Anyway the (real) riders were all very nice and I managed to get autographs of the entire team on my jersey. Now, that's is one thing which I am not in a hurry to wash! In addition, I got a couple of bottles and caps as well. Nice!

Just too bad that there were no spare Zipps or P3Cs to give away.

menacing looking truck

the motherlode

Can't wait for the Tour to come! Allez! Allez! Allez!

langkawi 2008

Good luck to all the athletes racing Ironman Langkawi 2008 tomorrow morning, especially to Jinseng, Zhiyong, Adrian, Yongsheng and Colin - I will be tracking you guys on ironmanlive!

2008's edition of the race seems to be hotter, not only in terms of temperature, but also the pro-field line up. ESPN, the producer of many Emmy award programs at Kona, has also flown in to produce a Ironman Langkawi show. Not fair! I was there last year and there was no film crew!

Nevertheless I am sure that for the 800 starters tomorrow morning, 23 Feb 08 will be a day to remember, because you will be facing the Toughest Show on Earth. Allez! =)

gold for Singapore

Well done and congrats to Mok for flying our flag high today!!! You are really da man for going out there all alone and battling the other competitors, the wind, the sun and everything else to get the Gold!!! Respect!!! B)

Jeanette, Elaine and Sunny, dun be too demoralised (although I know that you guys are not). You guys put in lots of effort, sweat, tears and sacrifices to get where you guys are now, and I'm sure you gave everything that you had. For that, I salute you guys. =)

Now its time to shelve away the goggles, hang up the cycling shoes, and put away those trainers for a while, and enjoy the off-season! You guys certainly deserve it!!!

mok races for the gold at the 27th SEA games

SGD 10k richer

world champions 2007

Congrats to Macca and Chrissie.. you guys worked hard and got the victory that you guys deserved! Macca finally put the money where the mouth is after 7 years and just a simply fantastic win for Chrissie who is just into her 2nd Ironman! Go here for more news..

anybody spot the Singapore connection somewhere? =P

hawaii five-o

Woohoo.. The Ironman World Championships are here again! This year promises to be even more exciting after what "Big Mouth" Macca said last year. Certainly there won't be any lovin' going on along Alii Drive come tomorrow!

Can't wait to see the drama unfold. The show starts 8amPST and 11amEST. That translates to 1am on 14 Oct in Singapore and 7pm for me tonight! =P

Who are you placing your money on? I'm betting on the Normanator to run a blazing 2hr45min marathon after a sizzling 4hr2omin ride through the lava fields. That is, if the bees and tyre punctures do not get to him first. =D Macca, be afraid; Be VERY afraid!!!



VS

game on!

*update at 2330hrs*

Sun finally came out for a while in the afternoon so I went for a nice easy rolling ride to Lumbin and back in the afternoon (60km). After that I headed out for dinner, then watched France get kicked out of the IRB Rugby World Cup by England. What a shame! Sadness was palpatable in the air as I left the pub. The French always seem to have bad luck in these high-profile competitions. But losing to the English?! I thought they were Murphy's pet! =P

Then I got home. And I found out that while both 2006 winners Norman Stadler and Michellie Jones are out of the race, Macca is also nowhere near the Men's leaders on the bike. The current leaders are Torbjorn Sinballe and Leander Cave. What a bizzare day indeed!

try your best, but remember that there's a limit

17-year-old triathlete collapsed after crossing finish line

A PROMISING 17-year-old triathlete collapsed on Sunday after he crossed the finish line in a South-east Asia Games selection trial.
He died less than two hours later.

Thaddeus Cheong, a Raffles Junior College first-year student, had just swam 1.5km, cycled 40km and ran 10km at Changi.

The national triathlete had been trying for a place in the team for December's SEA Games in Korat, Thailand.

Yesterday's trial was the first of two races to decide the four slots - two men and two women.

The next one will be the Osim Singapore International Triathlon at East Coast Park on July 29.

Eight men and three women started the race at about 6.45am at Tanah Merah Country Club's swimming pool.

Triathlon Association of Singapore senior executive and assistant national coach, Mr Jerry Seah, said Thaddeus looked 'very confident', 'very happy and ready to go', before the flag-off.

nus biathlon 07

Helping Jasper with some free publicity efforts. If you can swim and run, and will be free on the morning of 4 March, why not head down to ECP for the NUS Biathlon? Challenge your limits and go the distance! Sign up now! Allez! =D

Embrace it. Brave it. NUS Biathlon 2007

hard talk at hard rock

Hi there! Just back from the Deca-IM Sharing session at HRC.

Well, most of the triathlon community was there, with the aim of hearing about the crazy exploits of Harn Wei and what drives the man. Well, shan't tell you about the details (hey, we all paid $18 ok?), but HW delivered his presentation in true professor style! Haha. Wonder how many modular credits will TRI101 or IM2101 offer? =)

Well I managed to bike in the afternoon, thanks to a break in between classes. Wow the weather was so hot! Went down to Tengah to do sprint intervals, and had to stop every 2 loops! Did 5 in all, and I'm glad that I improved with every lap! Weather's been good these few days so taking the opportunity to do more, especially in the afternoons (Langkawi simulation).

Think I'll just end off today's entry here. Need some sleep. Nights!

HW giving out numbers for the next 4D draw

sharkie unveils his battle plans

priceless

Aviva Ironman Singapore 70.3

Yaay! The covers are hot off the press! The Aviva Ironman Singapore 70.3 is now a legitimate and official race! Check out Ironman Singapore 70.3 for more details.

Me and Grace went down to the press conference at the Ritz Carlton (official hotel) on Saturday to help out Adrian and his team. Alot of the other trifamers and triathletes were there too, like Jeanette, Ben, Harn Wei, Boon Pin and many others. Most of them were there for the bike ride with Ser Luck (who was the GOH for the day) though.

The program of the day was simple enough: Bike ride through the city with outriders leading the way, presentation of Ironman Singapore 70.3 and media reception. The bike ride went off without a hitch, and even the weather was nice and sunny (good omen perhaps for next year? =P). After the ride the riders were all treated to a first class transition reception! Wow, this has got to be the first time I have seen Gatorade being served in jugs and glasses! Everybody was in praises about the service. I think with this kind of transition, the race fee would very well be worth it. Hehe.

Next was the presentation which went off without a hitch. Watching the video about athlete #1390 was rather inspiring. Wow I so want to qualify for Kona next year! =D For the media reception I guess Singapore being Singapore, not much media was present so the segment was skipped and we went straight to the part where everyone was waiting for: High-tea!

Yaay.. the food was good and the service was even better! The Ritz is really THE Ritz man.. Talk about having your coffee stirred for you man! And the muffins were just seriously divine. =D

Ok got to go now.. Need to sleep for tomorrow's training (hopefully). It has been raining non-stop since Sunday! <_<

The cool people who had made it all possible - Look at Adrian's delighted face! =)

Me, my idol Harn Wei, and Grace

le marathon!

Voilà! I'm back from the marathon! Weather was extremely good today, mostly alot of cloud cover and was not sunny AT ALL!

Started my marathon last night by carbo loading at Brewerz with 3 pints. Reached home but only slept at 12+ as my bodyclock is now like totally screwed up. No matter how I tried I couldn't sleep! Woke up groggy at 3am this morning (hey at least I got up!) then proceeded to the Marina after the usual pre-race preparations. (afternote: parking at Marina is damn expensive! Paid $11 for parking!!! Seriously it is more siong than the marathon! Next time walk to Padang or take public transport..)

Saw alot of people I knew even before the marathon. Met the rest of the pacers at the Cenotaph. Proceeded to the starting pens like 15 mins before the start. Even then, it was extremely packed! Whew.. After the race started it was much better. Did a very easy pace as my target finishing timing was 5hrs.

The 1st 21km flew by very easily. My team was laughing and joking most of the way to alleviate the boredom. We also checked ourselves quite constantly for our pace to make sure that we were not going too fast (very easy to lapse into this problem) or too slow. Maybe the pace was too slow or what, it started to get quite bad for me about the 30km mark. Was it the dreaded wall? Maybe. My body was not suited, even after 2 months of pacer training, to take the slow pace. Furthermore, I really felt like going to take a dump. Haha. Nevertheless, managed to keep the pace even though my body felt like running faster, so that I can stop running sooner.

If people were overtaking us in the first 21km, then we were overtaking alot of people in the 2nd half of the marathon. You could see that these runners were really struggling, and it reminded me of my race last year where I had a terrible ITB injury. Luke, Yanglyn and me took turns to cheer people up, commenting on their Adidas reasons, making small talk and generally keeping the environment positive. Meeting people we knew was also quite inspiring as we could encourage each other along.

The last 10km is always quite torturing cos the route turns into Lavender and there's alot of traffic. However it also means that we are 3/4 done. Yep we did a countdown all the way from 32km to the end. Everytime we passed a distance marker we would clap and cheer. You could see that the cheering really helped some people as they made some effort to start running/hobbling/fast walking. Wah got this girl who came up to me and told me I was her inspiration somemore!!! =D So touched lor.. Quite chio somemore. Hehe.

So yeah last 1.195km onwards I started really herding people, yelling at them that they had to be in front of me if they wanted a sub-5 hour timing. Hehe. Quite fun leh. Machiam PTI liddat, so sadistic. So yeah I finished the marathon in 5 hrs 00 mins 11 secs (gun time). Not bad for a first time pacer! It was truly fun and rewarding. Met alot of people too, like BG Bernard Tan (former CAO), LTC Lim Tong Peng (who never fails to have a smile on his face), MAJ Paul (I told you that you could do it!), Grace (of course! my training partner cum swim coach leh. Plus I tompang her, how to miss?!), Susan (who went with us for training ever so religiously), Billy & Tricia (triathlon's golden couple), Boon Tat (trailblazer bitch), and not to mention all the many many other trifam, NUS or Army friends along the way. (Sorry too many of you to remember! I shack cannot think.. =P)

The route this year stayed largely similar to previous years. The only difference was that the marina loop was slightly longer as we had to run to the new ferry terminal. This meant that we looped around the lagoon at ECP instead of heading all thw way down to Bedok jetty. Well I thought that this was a good move since usually most people hit the wall at about 30-32km and having more supporters situated at this critical area could help to boost their morale.

Aching knees and sore legs now but yeah still have to study for fluids later. Bleah. In the meantime there's IM WA on-going. Ah Beng has finished with a great timing of 13h 28 but Jin Seng, Adrian and Ron have yet to finish. Really worried for them.

Ok gotta go already. Looking forward to Tuesday - the end of exams! Till then, au revoir!

les jambes des pacers

les pacers sans moi, parce que j'ai eu une teste

can you spot me? =P

Boon Tat (dun you think he looks damn gay), me and Grace

Yours truly =D