Olympic Fever in Singapore!!!

The beijing olympics are just 3 days away now, and nooo … I’m not off to beijing!!! Unfortunately ….

Lucky catherine (below) is probably in a hotel at beijing, waiting eagerly for the opening ceremony at this point, and whilst I figure I could have angled for tickets somehow, I’ve had my share of holidays this couple of months, so no beijing for me!

With the olympics in Asia this year however, it seems that Singapore is recieving a fair bit of pre-olympic action.

For one, the brazillian football team was in town to play the Singapore football team. Tickets were priced pretty steeply at $60 and $120, and whilst I was pretty psyched up about going, I was in two minds about it.

Eventually, I got VIP tickets for free through Darren, whose family friend had sponsored the entire event!

 THANKS UNCLE TEO!!!

I’m a super patriotic singaporean, but in this instance, I was pretty much looking forward to a slaying. A round of entertaining, dazzling, samba football that would put our football team to shame.

 The first thing Darren asked me when I got into the car was, “Soo, uncle, what do you think the score is going to be?” I replied, “I hope something like 12-2???” Darren’s estimate was kinder at 7-0.

The stars of the show were of course, Ronaldinho of AC Milan, and Anderson of my beloved Man United! One of the most exciting young talents in football today.

The first half started relatively optimistically for the Brazillians. Diego scored a scorcher (from outside the box) in the 22nd minute of the game. Ronaldinho soon added a second in the 28th minute, although it was a pretty scrappy affair. The brazillians were on track, or so we thought.

 The first half ended 2-0.

It was in the second half that our pride in the Singapore team soon started taking root. For one, there was this indian dude in front of us, cheering the team passionately on. He was so into it, his enthusiasm kind of spilled over.

The tide started to turn, and you could see that more Singaporeans were willing our team on to score.

They say the crowd is the 12th man, and that was nowhere more evident than in this match. In quick succession, Singapore had 2 great chances to score, and were only denied by a verrryyyy sharp keeper!

It was not to be however, and Manchester City’s latest singning, Jo, added the third to make the final score 3-0.

It had been a great opportunity to see the brazillians at work, but I left rather dissapointed, at their lack of samba magic. I guess people have such high expectations that Ronaldinho will run past 10 men, and score … but well …. it was an experience nonetheless!

The second bit of pre-olympic action took place at the Singapore Island Country Club, a golf club that I’m lucky to be a member of.

The entire US olympic swimming team and before them part of the Australian Olympic swimming team were there for aclimatisation, and training. The SICC has excellent facilities for this purpose. It has a full sized olympic swimming pool, and also a 25 metre swimming pool, so it seemed like a natural choice.

Anyway, after having gone there for lunch one afternoon, I noticed a little sign that said the club would be holding a meet and greet session for members on Sat, between 8-9AM!

With that in mind, on Friday night, I headed off to borders to try to find a book on michael phelps (Which I could get the amazing swimmer to sign).

 For those who don’t know, I’m a kind of autograph afficianado. In the UK, I collected so much.I have Chrsitiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Bobby Charlton, George Best, Sir Alex Ferguson, Bryan Robson, Nobby Stiles, Bill Foulkes (All Man United), Pele, Steve Waugh (Cricket), Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay (Both great chefs), and more.

 So anyway, in the end, after an extensive search, I got this book called “Sports in the 21st Century by Reuters” It is a really really good picture coffee table book, of the greatest athletes and sportsmen/women in the world. Every single photo tells a story, and I thought the picture of Phelps was amazing.

Armed with my book, me and Estee headed off to the club at 0730 in  the morning!!! I wasn’t expecting much of a crowd, since I thought firstly this was a member’s club, and also it was so early!

I was wrong! There were lotss of people!!! Most of the people there were eager parents with their kids. Eager to tell inspire olympic dreams in their young sons and daughters.

I soon learned that there were to be two sessions. One at 0830, in which members of the public could get their chance to meet the US olympians, albeit minus the top 6 swimmers.

 

And another at 1030, which was only for members, and would involve the Top 6 swimmers. Namely, Michael Phelps, Dara Torres, Brenden Hansen, Eric Shanteau, Katie Hoff and Natalie Coughlin. These top 6 swimmers represented the cream of the crop! And the majority of gold medals of the team. They were all featured on the recent time magzine, identifying the Top 100 atheletes to watch at the Beijing 08 Olympics.

It was an amazing experience, both parts. Firstly, watching them train.

And secondly getting so many autographs …

And of course THE MAN!!!

Michael was really friendly. And when he saw that amazing photo, he commented at least three times, “Wow! That is a great photo! I’ve never seen it before”, he even went as far as showing his team mate Dara Torres the photo, and I could sense he almost wanted to take the book home!!!

It was cool chatting with him, and I left the SICC with my prize!

I will be closely watching their progress at the Olympics in Beijing!