SUPPORTING SPORTS EXCELLENCE IN SINGAPORE

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SUPPORTING SPORTS EXCELLENCE IN SINGAPORE: 6.42 pm

Mr Ng Ser Miang: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, yesterday morning I returned to Singapore after spending three weeks at the Athens Olympic Games. On the same flight was our Olympic team returning home. The flight landed at an unearthly hour, at 5.15 in the morning, and yet at the Changi Airport to welcome them were RAdm Teo Chee Hean, President of the Singapore National Olympic Council and Minister for Defence,Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and

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Sports, andmore than 200 ardent supporters and fans. When Jiawei and team came through the gate, the crowd cheered and swarmed around them. I thought probably Jiawei needed the security officer more than the two Ministers present. Cameras and flashes went crazy at the reception for the welcome. It was amazing and wonderful.Our team has come home and Singapore is with them.

For 16 days, 10,500 of the world's best athletes from 202 countries and territories competed in 28 sports and 300 events in Athens. At the closing ceremony, IOC President, Dr Jacques Rogge,called the Athens Games the "Unforgettable Dream,Dream Games". Our own dream, Singapore's dream for an Olympic medal, almost came true in Athens. Our Olympic team has done its best for Singapore and stood its own against the world's best. We watched and cheered Ronald Susilo's gallant efforts in defeating Lin Dan, the world's No. 1 in two straight sets. We were pleasantly surprised when Zhang Xueling fought fearlessly into the top eight and lostto North Korean Kim Hyang Mi by two sets to four, while a day ago Kim Hyang Mi had defeated the world's No. 3, Niu Jiangfong, in four straight sets. Our hopes were raised when Li Jiawei defeated Wan Nan, the world's No. 2, and went into the semi-finals. The headlines in the Straits Times screamed: "Gather around for the live telecast. Table tennis fever at 5.00 pm for Singaporeans at home, bars and abroad". We shared Jiawei's deep disappointment when she lost the semi-final match and the match for the bronze. But we knew that she has fought hard,

done well for herself and for Singapore. Our Singaporean journalists and I were with Jiawei. She was inconsolable,feeling that she has failed to live up to the hope of fellow Singaporeans. Then, the Prime Minister (PM) called. PM comforted and encouraged her. PM said, and I quote,

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"There is no reason to be sad. We are proud of you. Yes, you have not won the top prize but we will keep on trying. Sports isn't just medals. It is doing our best. Try again-overcome setbacks, depending on each other, being part of Team Singapore. Our athletes, many of them have made Singapore their home and they have become part of our family and we should welcome them and celebratethem."

Jiawei told me, " zong li jiao wo bu yao ku, wo bu ku le ", or PM asked me not to cry and I stopped. And then, she smiled. Thank you, PM, for speaking to Jiawei and for your words of encouragement, not just to her, but to our athletes and to Singaporeans. Our athletes will overcome all adversities and try and try again. I hope that when PM phones Jiawei or any one of our athletes at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, it will be to congratulate her or him for winning a medal for Singapore.

Indeed, our athletes have done us proud through their relentless efforts, their fighting spirit and their conduct. MediaCorp, through its partnership with IOC, provided 630 hours of coverage through six TV channels that enabled tens of thousands of Singaporeans a unique experience watching our athletes compete live. The daily prominent coverage by all the newspapers under the SPH Group provided exciting first-hand coverage of our athletes'exploits forour Singaporean readers. The team of reporters andcameramen in Athens was very much of Team Singapore, sharing the ups and downs of our team. Our media has indeed played an important role in supporting sports excellence. They have helped to project the image of our athletes and fire up the imagination and support of Singaporeans. Our athletes truly appreciate the positive and encouraging

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reports appearing in our newspapers and television programmes.

For those of us who have been concerned with the development of a sports culture in Singapore, we feel very happy with the development,the care, involvement and concern of Singaporeans. According to MediaCorp, 313,000 watched Jiawei in the semi-finals and 456,000 in the bronze medal play-off. All in all, there were 2.6 million viewers over the whole games period. The many encouraging comments and letters, SMS and emails, praising the efforts, encouraging all our athletes and urging them on despite losing, were just heartwarming. I know that sports excellence has the support of Singaporeans and that we are developing a strong sports culture.

Today, we read about Jiawei accepting Ronald's proposal. We are all happy for them and wish them happiness together ever after - but do not forget the Olympic medal.I hope our table tennis and badminton associations will adopt family-friendly policies so that we have young Jiaweis and Ronalds fighting for the glory of Singapore in 20 years' time.

We have a relatively short history in promoting sports excellence. SPEX 2000 was only launched in 1993 with $8 million support, half from the Government and half from Singapore Pools. Despite this, our athletes, with thatsupport, won eight golds at the three Asian Games from 1994 to the year 2002, four golds at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Additional support came in 2000 when Government provided $500 million of extra support over five years.Out of this, $150 million went to enhance the SPEX programme and is much needed by our NSAs. This additional funding will come to an end byfinancial year 2005 and new money has to be found. MCYS and SSC have done a good job in laying a solid foundation for

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sports excellence and we hope that they will continue to do so.

Since the Olympic Games in 2000, wewent to the Olympics not any more as mere participants, but with serious intention of winning a medal for Singapore. Junhong had a chance to do so in Sydney, Jiawei had a possibility even for a silver or gold in Athens and Ronald and Xueling were in the quarter-finals and just one step away from fighting for a medal. I fully agree with Tay Cheng Khoon when he said "Singapore must build on the momentum created by the relative achievements of Ronald, Xueling and Jiawei and there must be more serious credible medal challengers"in an article in the Straits Times on 30th August. I too believe that an Olympic medal is within reach of Singapore at the 2008 or 2012 Olympic Games.

Government funding and support are indispensable for sports excellence in Singapore. I would urge MCYS to start looking into the continuous funding and support of sports excellence after FY2005. In fact, I would argue that while the current SPEX programme has and will continue to support our athletes and NSAs' efforts to excel at the SEA Games, we should now look at two additional tiers of funding. One tier is to support sports like bowling, sailing, shooting and body-building that have provensuccess at Asian Games and the next highest tier to support sports like table tennis and badminton that will bring us medals at the Olympic Games. I also urge MCYS to implement multi-year funding to NSAsfor at least the two top tiers, a proposal that has been brought to this House during the Budget debate. To do well at the Olympics or the Asian Games, one has to plan and act at least eight years ahead. No one can do much without commitment and funding. These NSAs and our top athletes need special support.

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Sports excellence needs the support of our corporations as well. Korean companies are well-known for their support for sports. Almost every big chaebo adopts a sport for support. It is not just about funding and sponsorship but also the expertise in areas such as management, financial controls, strategic planning that are useful and which companies can provide to NSAs.

On the other hand, companies can also benefit from associations of sports and athletes and we can see ample examples of this good relation, for example, between the IOC and companies such as Samsung and Coca-Cola in the top programme. I believe that more companies can be persuaded to come forward - by this, I mean Singaporean companies -to support sports and MCYS can work with them. If I may also be bold enough to suggest that TLCs will have a special role to play and can lead and lend a lot of support in our quest for sports excellence.

In addition to funding, NSAs and athletes would also need support in terms of sports sciences,coaching, sparring partners, technical expertise, overseas training and competitions. I would ask MCYS to look into pooling and consolidatingthe sports sciencesupport of theSSC Sports School and that of the School of Physical Education under NIE to provide better supportto NSAs and athletes.

Recently, I learnt about the Direct School Admission scheme offered by Raffles School, NUS School and a number of selected schools. This scheme would allow admission of P6 students with special talents in sports, visual arts, music and other areas into these secondary schools, independent of their PSLE "T" score. In time to come, I believe that we have many schools that will become a nursery for our future sports champions in addition to our Sports School. Perhaps,

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MCYS should also provide adequate support to these other schools in order to broaden our base of sports talents.

In the review of performance of countries taking part in various games, it is discovered that athletes of host countries usually do better when they are at home. For example, Thailand won three golds at the Hiroshima Asian Games in 1994 and 24 golds at the 1998 SEA Games when it was held in Bangkok. South Korea won 65 golds at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok and 96 golds when the Games went to Busan in 2002. Vietnam won 33 golds at the 2001 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur and 158 golds when the Games was held in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2003. Singapore won 50 gold medals when we hosted the 1993 SEA Games, our best ever performance. Some of the reasons were: home teams would always be better prepared and fight harder for the country's honour in front of their home crowd. Home crowd support and home advantage also play a part. I believe that hosting major games such as the Asian Games would definitely boost the standards of our athletes and bring our sports excellence to the next higher level. I would ask MCYS to consider the possibility of hosting the Asian Games in Singapore in the not too far away future and bear this possibility in mind when designing the Sports Hub.

The pursuit of sports excellence cannot be done by our NSAs or athletes alone. It requires the support of our Government and all Singaporeans. Let us all be inspired by what is possible and put Singapore in the forefront of sports in the world in tandem with our outstanding economic development that we have achieved.

The Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (Dr Vivian Balakrishnan): Mr Deputy Speaker,time is

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moving on, soI will keep my reply very short. I join Mr Ng Ser Miang in paying tribute to our Olympic team, especially toMiss Li Jiawei, Ronald Susilo and Zhang Xueling who did extremely well, kept the Singapore flag flying, raised our hopes and indeed united us.

There are two key aspects that need to be highlighted. First is that they have broken a psychological barrier. For a long while, we have said that we cannot do it - we are just there as spectators, we are there just forexperience, we can never win. I think they have shown Singaporeans that we do have a chance and breaking that psychological barrier is perhaps the most important contribution that their performance has set out for us.

The second aspect is that for those few days they brought together an entire nation to share in their celebrations, and also to share in their disappointments. And one key lesson which we also learned from that is that it almost does not matter which sport it is. Table tennis has usually been considered to be a sport which the Chinese have predominantly been interested in. But as Li Jiawei herself told our journalists, that when she looked up to the stand, there was cheering for her. She saw Singaporeans - Indians, Malays and Chinese - collectively celebrating and cheering her on. So, we have shown that sports indeed does have the power to rally and to unify us.

The secondpoint I want to move on to is the pursuit of sports excellence. This does not come easily and multiple ingredients are needed. We need money, a sporting culture and training systems. Let me touch first on money.

You all know that we have a $500 million Sporting Singapore fund which has been used since 2001 and Mr Ng is very anxious that it would run out by the end of 2005. Let me reassure him that MCYS is currently preparing to negotiate with

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the Ministry of Finance and Singapore Pools to replenish that source of funds so that we could continue with our pursuit of sports excellence. The point, however, is that it is not just a matter of blindly throwing money at an objective or at a problem. But we do need to critically and carefully scrutinise the strategic plans of the national sports associations and the athletes themselves who would indeed be the cutting edge in our pursuit of sports excellence. We need, therefore, to focus. We do not have an unlimited source of funds in Singapore. We need to focus on areas and in sports where we do seriously have already done well or have a good chance of doing well in the future.

I have also heard the feedback from some of the sports associations that even the current limit of $3 million for core sports may be insufficient. We would look at all these issues and we would come out, in due time, with a practical and sensible way of allocating resources in a focused manner so that it makes a difference and, hopefully, we would have a significantly better chance of winning medals in the future.

The second aspect I want to touch on is culture. Again, as the Memberhas alluded to,the fact that so many Singaporeans were watching TV, reading newspapers and supporting our athletes, it creates an atmosphere, an environment, a culture in which people are interested in sports. Hopefully, this would translate into people actively participating in sports because ultimately it is not a nation of couch potatoes that we want but a nation that lives, thinks and dreams sports because of the multiple benefits that it brings us as individuals and as a nation. If we have a truly sporting culture in our country,we would have the capability to produce potential champions,we would support champions, then corporate entities would feel that it is worth their while to provide sponsorships and to truly

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support and enhance the multiple programmes which our athletes need in order to compete at the highest level.

The third aspect is training. Training requires systems, facilities and schools. Members know that we arehoping to roll out the tender for the rebuilding of a sports hub. This, hopefully, would take place by the third quarter of nextyear, but there are many, many details that need to be sorted out because this is not a trivial project. Membersknow that we have got the Sports School. It is a start. We need to continue to support this, to allow more of our students who choose sports, either as a career in itself, or as a serious pursuit co-existing with their studies so that this again would be another source of potential champions with us. We also know that it is not just the Sports School that is involved with this, but many mainstream schools. Besides that, it is in their own interest to have both a sports-for-all programme as well as a sports excellence programme. And we would certainly work with the Ministry of Education to promote this.

The national sports associations have to make sure that they are well-run, that they have good accountability for their funds, that there is good leadership. Ultimately, they require leaderswho are passionate about sports, who are nurturingthe young men and women who would beunder their charge for many years at a time.

I would like to end by saying that we are a small nation and we have often lowered our aims or hopes because we say we are small and we could not produce the talent. I think we are at the stage in our lives as a nation when the sports arena has shown us that being small is compatible with having big dreams and high hopes if we have people, if we have the willingness to commit resources to it, if we are well-organised

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and if, as a nation, we are united in this pursuit of sports excellence. And, in fact, it is these same ingredients which we need for success, not just in sports, but for success as a nation in the future.