i think saa should review their qualification marks. some of them are unreasonable given the current level of standard. it’s like asking a baby to walk before they learn how to crawl.

I once helped out at a high jump competition and the adjustment of height for the crossbar is a very tedious process. The official was too lazy to adjust accurately and one side was higher than the other. She then told me that it was alright because the athletes wouldn’t know anyway. This display left me speechless. What if it was supposed to be a record, and upon checking, the head official did not recognise the record because of one lazy official’s mistake. Taking away a record from someone is terrible!

Another incident happened recently at the national juniors. The same official mentioned above was the official in charge of long jump. It was so obvious to everyone watching at a particular competitor took off over board. But she choosed not to raise the red flag. And this caused another athlete to lose his position. How could such a thing happen.

I hope that the new officials would step up the standards and hopefully, we will see less of such instances.

>>>Finally T & F season has started, with the 1st Allcomers Meet on 18March 07 at Gombak Stadium. From the throwing events Javelin for men, Discus for men junior and Discus for woman were on the programme.

In the Javelin event the qualification was set to 36m (800g) and proved to be too high for some competitor, as only 7 made it to the final 3 throws while the rest went home without measured performance. After the first 3 throws Austin LOKE from HCI led with 48.60m, followed by CHEONG Zhaoming from NTU with 47.82m and LEE Yue Jer unattached with 45.90m. In the 4th throw Lee Yue Jer unattached improved to 49.39m and secured himself the 1st place. George TAN Hui Ming, the only competitor from CH manages to enter the final round with a throw from 36.54m but could not improve further. At the end he came in 7th and shows good potential for this year NSC.
The second throwing event Discus woman was brought in additional. The qualification was set to 20m (1kg) with only 7 participating girls. To my surprise after the first 3 throws 5 girls were send home without any performance as they did not made the qualification standard. In the T & F competition rules 180 /5 it says:
Where there are eight athletes or fewer, each athlete shall be allowed six trials. If more than one fail to achieve a valid trial during the first three rounds, such athletes shall compete in subsequent rounds before those with valid trials, in the same relative order according to the original draw.
At the end WAN Lay Chi from ITE won the competition with a distance of 46.18m, only 1m short of her own Junior Record of 47.17m set last year. Second was LAW Lining from AIS with 23.67m.
Last throwing event was discus for men junior. The qualification was set to 30m (1.75kg) with 10 boys taking part. Here too, only 4 pass the qualification standard and the rest, including the two throwers taking part from CH, were send home without recorded performance. Scott WONG HCI, only 4th after the first 3 throws, won the competition with 42.54m, followed by Andrew GANAPATHY CJC with 36.28m. The 3rd place went to Duane CHEN ACSI ( I) with 33.93m. Unfortunate for Brian LEOW from CH, his 1st throw was measured with 29.97m, but was not recorded as it was below the qualification standard set. CH’s second thrower YAN Dawei could not perform to expectation.

I hope in future qualification standards are set were it is needed and rules are laid out correctly, so that more participants have a chance to go home with a recorded performance to motivate them and get better.

After that, I just pass the results to my school and let them write the story they want.

coach Jana

All my ‘incidences’ are with the local officials, never with the Gurkhas officials. They’ve never ‘took it out’ on us nor showed their temper. Quite the cool official. I think the local big-heads or shall i say dickhead should let the Gurkhas be in-charge of some of the events, rather than our local officials

I dunno, i just think if we’re gonna go on & on about raising the standard of athletics in Singapore, perhaps we should consider the standard of officiating as well as that of athletes. I know most of the officials are volunteers and some take pride in their work, but sometimes at local meets, u’ll always experience some black sheep cases that will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Well, on the flip side of the coin, I think athletes should also prepare way beforehand & report on time to prevent unnecessary delays. SO the blame should not fall squarely on officials’ shoulders.