YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES IN 2010

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YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES IN 2010:

(Milestones): 12.

Ms Sylvia Lim asked the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports what sporting or other milestones that Singapore can reach at the Youth Olympic Games in 2010.

Mr Teo Ser Luck (for the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports): Singapore has achieved a significant milestone in winning the bid to host the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in 2010.

Hosting the YOG not only provides the opportunity for Singapore to contribute to the Olympic movement, but also provides an opportunity where Singapore can benefit as a nation. The YOG will be a good platform through which we can engage and develop our youth, promote sports and a sporting culture, and profile Singapore to a global audience. It can also serve as a platform for nation-building.

For our athletes, while it is difficult to predict the performances in our youth, we can expect to do well and return with medals in some sports. Currently, they

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have also shown some promising prospects, such as sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis and badminton. Our young sailors have consistently won medals at World Optimist, Byte and Laser 4.7 events recently. A number of our young shooters have consistently recorded near perfect scores in training and who are gaining increased international competition exposure and show great promise. We also have a number of very talented young swimmers, table tennis and badminton players, all of whom can challenge the best young athletes in the world in their respective events.

For our youth, YOG will provide a platform over the next two years to nurture the young people with a greater global awareness. It will allow them to better appreciate what it means to be Singaporeans, as they play an active role in helping to host youths from all over the world. To achieve this, the YOG Organising Committee is planning several programmes, together with the Ministry of Education (MOE).

These include the School-National Olympic Committee twinning programme and the Olympic Education programme. Our youth will be taught the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect. They will also have the opportunity to interact with young athletes from all over the world, and play hosts to them when they arrive for the YOG. Together, they will learn about one another's culture, and celebrate the ideals of the Olympic movement.

Sir, as the host country, we will be in a good position to expose our aspiring young athletes to competition at the highest level of sports. The YOG will serve as a platform in our ongoing effort to promote sports and develop our sporting culture. And we hope that the YOG will also allow us to build up our local expertise amongst our sports

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officials and volunteers in order to organise and conduct international competitions. There will also be areas of business collaboration, economic spin-offs and development of expertise in various sports industry related sectors, such as sports media broadcasting, sports event management and service provision.

As part of the efforts to promote the YOG, we will also be able to profile and market Singapore to a global audience. Aside from promoting Singapore as a tourist destination, the YOG, with its strong culture and education component, will allow us to showcase our youth development efforts and our diverse and vibrant culture.

Hosting the YOG will provide an excellent platform to rally Singaporeans to a common cause and, through this, generate national pride. Singaporeans will have a wonderful opportunity to enrol in this national effort to make the event a success, by being gracious hosts and volunteering to help organise the games. I hope that many will respond to this invitation and play a part in making the YOG a success and making Olympic history.

Ms Sylvia Lim (Non-Constituency Member): Sir, I would like to ask the Senior Parliamentary Secretary some supplementary questions.

Firstly, he mentioned earlier that in the recent Olympic Games in Beijing, we sent 25 athletes. I am wondering if the Government has an estimate of how many more athletes we will be sending for the Youth Olympics since we are the host.

Secondly, are we venturing into other sports which we did not go to at the Olympic Games itself?

Thirdly, as the host country, I suppose there will be some interests in our

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performance. Does the Government have an idea of what would be a good medal tally at the end of the Youth Olympics?

Mr Teo Ser Luck: When we won the bid for the YOG, we started some thoughts into youth development planning for the young athletes, not just the young elite athletes but really increasing participation in different sports as well. Our target is the best we can field athletes and national representation for all 26 sports. But we know that that is a challenge, because there are some sports where we have just set up the national sports associations, namely, wrestling, handball and pentathlon.

For example, pentathlon is a sport of five sports. So, we need to get one athlete who is well-versed in five sports, which is not easy. Nevertheless, since we have set up the national sports association, we are setting the target that each of the associations would at least need to have one representation. For some sports, we need to qualify to get into the Olympics. For some sports, we get wild-card slots which are allocated to the host country. So we may have national representation. But if they do not qualify for the Olympics, finally, at the YOG in Singapore, we may not even have a national representation. Nevertheless, our main objective is to encourage participation, for young people to step forward, be interested in sports, willing to commit their time and effort to train, and we are willing to give the support.

For the medal tally, I would say that it is very hard to make a prediction or even a forecast. As I mentioned, we do have some promising athletes in different sports. But I believe that we will not return empty-handed. Looking at how we have done for the Olympics and even for the Paralympics, I think Singapore does have a system that can produce promising international young athletes who can be world beaters, and I truly have confidence

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and faith in them that they will return with at least one medal, whatever the colour.