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Saturday, February 09, 2008

Ice rinks too small?

I was going to add this as a comment on my previous post, Olympic size ice rink for Singapore!, but it is becoming too long and philosphical... So here starts a new post!

Here's the Straits Times article after the Nationals where SISA "complained" about the ice rinks here being too small:
Ice rinks too small for talents to flourish

To be fair, the real reason behind Singapore not being able to compete on the figure skating world stage (including the Olympics, World Championships and Asian Games), is that without an Olympic size ice rink, Singapore can never join the International Skating Union (ISU).

It is not a lack of talent...
We have young skaters who have progressed rapidly in the last few years. These are our up-and-coming talents. Tragically, we also had talented skaters who we have "lost" because of the lack of prospects in the sport. They have grown up and given up competitive skating for their studies and other pursuits.

It is not a rink size vs training issue in Singapore...
Many of our skaters have progressed locally. Our most recent Novice and pre-Novice National Champions, Alexandria Wong and Ng Yi Ching, have been trained almost exclusively in Singapore.

If it was really just an issue with the inability to train in small rinks here, then any person can logically say: just send a skater to train overseas and represent Singapore. Unfortunately, even our new Junior champion, Sarah Paw, a Singaporean who lives and trains in Beijing, cannot represent Singapore, however talented she may be... simply because Singapore is not recognised by the ISU!

1 comment:

Big Frank Dickinson said...

As a former resident of Singapore, and one who skated regularly while there, albeit on small rinks, I concur that larger rinks are needed. Here's the the future Singaporean Olympic figure skating medalists!

Big Frank Dickinson