China (CHN)

[Laura (Lori)]

Please post news, photos, info, etc., about the skaters from China here!

[bubblebuttsbabe]

SOURCE - www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2009-09/09/content_8671116.htm

Skaters start Olympic race on home ice
By Lei Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-09 10:02

China's short track speed skaters will start their Olympic season next week in Beijing with the first stop of the 2009-2010 ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup competition.

Led by Turin Winter Olympic gold medalist Wang Meng, the backbone of the national team will take part in the competition which will be held from Sept 17-20 at the Beijing Capital Gym.

More than 200 skaters from about 30 countries and regions will take part in the event, which will feature all eight Winter Olympic events - 500m, 1,000m, 1,500m and relay races for men and women.

"The Chinese national team is now preparing for the Vancouver Games," said Zhao Yinggang, director of China's Winter Sports Administrative Center.

"From the opening stop of the season the skaters will try to learn more about their rivals, find their competitive rhythm and accumulate experience," he said.

Due to the opening date of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, the short track speed skating season has been brought forward by about a month and there will only be four meets this season.

The last two stops, which will be in Montreal, Canada, from Nov 5-8, and Marquette, the US, from Nov 12-15, will also serve as qualifiers for the Vancouver Games, which start on February 12.

[mtnme]

China vows to end S. Korean dominance on short track rink

english.people.com.cn/90001/90779/90867/6883504.html


Under the guidance of star coach Li Yan, Chinese short track skaters spearheaded by Olympic champion Wang Meng will strive to end South Korea's domination in the sport at the upcoming Vancouver Winter Games.

Four years ago, an almighty South Korean team led by Ahn Hyun-soo and Jin Sun-yu swept six of eight short track gold medals on offer at the Turin Games, leaving the men's 500m and women's 500m to Apolo Anton Ohno of the United States and Wang Meng respectively. This time, the 25-year-old Wang vowed to fight back.

"Our target is to beat the South Korean team," said the double world record holder of the women's 500m and 1,000m events.

In the lead-up season to the Vancouver Games, Wang not only topped the World Cup women's overall standings, but also led her teammates to dominate the 3,000m relay.

"I am very confident," she said. "I am much stronger than four years ago, physically and mentally."

The existence of Li Yan, who was invited to take the helm of the Chinese team following her success at the Turin Games where she helped Apolo to the victory, made Wang and her compatriots more determined to win.

"I have full faith in her, and she believes me," said Wang Meng.

Although, the harmony was not there at first when Li, a silver medalist at the 1992 Albertville Games, went back to her homeland to join the Chinese team on a four-year contract. At the 2007 Asian Winter Games, Wang criticized Li for her training method and game tactics in a TV interview, resulting in a four-month suspension of the Olympic champion from the national side.

"It had all passed," Wang recalled. "We had some misunderstandings at first, but then we found out that we share the same value and we have the same target which inspired us to work hard shoulder to shoulder."

Li convinced her skaters gradually and the Chinese women broke out in the 2008-2009 World Cup season by finishing top of all women's overall standings for the first time since 2002. With the leadership of Wang and help of rising stars Zhou Yang and Liu Qiuhong, the Chinese women continued their dominance this season.

"I am not going to calculate the gold medals, I will just give my best, as I always do," said Li. "I am really excited with the Games getting closer and I hope my skaters could enjoy the process of the Games."

While the Chinese women expected to better their two-gold performance at the Salt Lack City Games in 2002, the South Korean men are aiming to tighten golden stranglehold. In the absence of injury-hampered Ahn, Lee Jung-su, the World Cup overall leader for the 1,000m and 1,500m events, will lead the field.

Ohno, the 27-year-old American who has collected five Olympic medals and nine world titles, and Charles Hamelin of Canada, who won the men's 500m world title in 2007 and 2009 and finished first in this season's 500m World Cup, will be among the main challengers

[Laura (Lori)]

Huh?

Chinese Olympic champion chided for putting mother before motherland
Reuters - Monday, March 8, 2010

www.dnaindia.com/sport/report_chinese-olympic-champion-chided-for-putting-mother-before-motherland_1356862

Beijing: Olympic champion short track speedskater Zhou Yang has been chided by China's deputy sports minister for thanking her parents but not her country after winning gold at the Vancouver Games last month.

The 18-year-old, who won gold in the 1,500 metres and as part of the 3,000m relay team, said in Canada that she hoped her achievements would make life easier for her unemployed parents.

"It is okay to thank your parents. But firstly you should thank the motherland. You should put the motherland first, not to only thank your parents," vice sports minister Yu Zaiqing told the Southern Metropolis Daily.

Her parents were awarded a 94-square-metre apartment valued at 300,000 yuan ($43,950) by the local government in their home city of Changchun after Zhou''s 1,500m triumph.

Lori's note: Ya' know, all patriotism aside, if Mr. Zhou hadn't been 'charmed' by Mrs. Zhou, there wouldn't have been a Zhou Yang for the 'motherland' to celebrate - OR to fuss at, as the case may be... I think that all Americans can give kudos to a gal who loves and respects her mama and daddy.

+++
Another similar article:

Skater's gaffe highlights politics of China sports
by Anita Chang / AP / Mar 9, 2010

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100309/ap_on_sp_ol/oly_china_ungrateful_skater_1

BEIJING – It was a political gaffe for Chinese short track speedskater Zhou Yang — failing to thank her country and its government after winning two gold medals at the Vancouver Olympics.

But the 18-year-old is winning widespread support for her honesty and naivete, after being criticized by a top sports official this week for mentioning her parents in a post-win interview but failing to express gratitude for the Chinese sports system.

"How can somebody love their country if they don't even love their parents?" China Youth Daily reporter Ma Jing wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday, echoing the many online comments supporting Zhou in a case that is currently one of the hottest topics on Chinese internet sites.

Zhou won gold in the 1,500-meter race and the 3,000-meter relay in her Olympic debut. After her 1,500 win Feb. 20, a breathless Zhou told China Central Television: "It's my dream. After winning the gold I might change a lot, become more confident and help my parents have a better life."

She thanked her coach and teammates, but never mentioned the state-run sports system in which she had trained as an athlete for much of her life.

"It's right to respect and thank your parents but you also have to have the country in your heart. The country must come first. Don't just talk about your parents," said Yu Zaiqing, deputy director of China's General Administration of Sport, in widely reported comments earlier this week.

Yu, who is also an International Olympic Committee vice president, added that the sports system must step up "moral education" for athletes.

He's been criticized in comments on countless Web sites, where many Chinese who are normally reticent to voice their opinions speak freely because of the anonymity found online. His entry on Baidu Baike, a site similar to Wikipedia, was temporarily changed to say "Yu Zaiqing, male ... no mother and no father, raised by the Communist Party."

Zhou's family has defended her behavior, saying she is a young woman unfamiliar with the political demands facing Chinese athletes.

"Of course she's naive! If she's not naive why would she say something like that?" said Zhou's aunt, surnamed Wang, who refused to give her name as is common among media-shy Chinese.

"Zhou Yang is very introverted, her life is eating, sleeping and training," Wang told The Associated Press. "Of course her parents have sacrificed a lot, too."

Yu's remarks underscore the ties binding sports to politics in China, where youngsters picked for their athletic abilities and specific physical traits undergo years of grueling training, with the singular goal of "winning glory for the country."

But Zhou appeared to be more concerned about her parents' welfare than her country, a move that has struck a chord among Chinese whose deeply ingrained Confucian heritage highly values respect for elders.

"For a girl who has a humble wish to let her parents live a comfortable life, she was heroic in her struggle to win these two gold medals for China but then encountered such criticism," wrote sports columnist Sa Fu of Chinese internet portal 163.com. "This is the real humiliation for the country."

Like many Chinese athletes, Zhou comes from a poor background. While parents hope their children can win Olympic medals and therefore financial awards, the payoff comes at a huge price. Before her two golds in Vancouver, Zhou was helping to support her disabled parents with her 500 yuan ($73) a month stipend.

She can now expect more than 1 million yuan ($150,000) in prize money to go with the new two-bedroom apartment that's already been awarded to her parents in their hometown of Changchun in northeast China.

On Tuesday, officials tried to deflect criticism of Yu, who made his comments Sunday during a sports committee meeting of China's top legislative advisory body. A fellow committee member said the group was discussing athletes in general and not Zhou specifically.

China's General Administration of Sport did not respond to a faxed request for comment Tuesday.

And Zhou appeared to have learned her lesson in Chinese political correctness. Several Web sites on Tuesday carried comments attributed to the skater, in which she gave thanks to all the right people.

"I thank the country for providing us with excellent conditions, for giving us the excellent conditions for our Olympic campaign," she was quoted as saying. "And I thank everyone who supported us, I thank our coaches, I thank the staff, and I thank my mom and dad."[/img]

[Laura (Lori)]

From Day 2 World Championships competition:

Wang Meng (#55, in the lead)...



Oh, so close!



Weng Mang celebrates!



And then for the men, t'was a good day for China (Liang Wenhao for the 500M win in a packed field, including a trio of Canadians)!



According to Tony Chung (who is a 'reliable source'), this is the first podium finish for a Chinese man since 2006 - good show, Liang!

See more images at:

www.2010wstssc-sofia.com/ (Click 'Gallery')

[Laura (Lori)]

A related article to the one posted above (from ChinaRealTime Report):

blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/03/08/thanks-to-mom-or-the-motherland/

Thanks to Mom or the Motherland?



Eighteen-year-old Zhou Yang became a national hero after she won a gold medal in the women’s 1,500 meters short-track speed skating during the Vancouver Winter Olympics last month. But the girl from a poor family in the northeastern rustbelt of Jilin province also made herself an idol of millions of Chinese youngsters with her unconventionally candid remarks in front of the TV camera after the award ceremony: Zhou didn’t thank China first; she thanked her parents instead — and just her parents.

Speed skater Zhou Yang was criticized for thanking her family and not her country“The gold medal will bring a lot of changes to my life. I will be more confident and it will improve the life of my parents,” Zhou told China Central Television on that day. Such straight talk breaks the tradition of Chinese athletes feeling obliged to thank the government or at least the motherland first and on most occasions, even avoiding the reference to family or themselves.

However, apparently not everyone appreciates Zhou’s love of her family and hopes of a better life. One of China’s top sports officials criticized the gold medalist Sunday during a group discussion of the annual meeting of China’s legislature.

Yu Zaiqing, deputy director of the National Sports Bureau and a vice chairman of the International Olympic Committee, told fellow lawmakers, “It’s fine to thank your mom and dad [for the gold medal] but one needs to thank the country first and foremost” (report in Chinese here).

Yu called Zhou a kid and said “while the Western way of expression is very good, there were things in her heart that the kid didn’t fully express.” He was of course referring to the mandatory patriotic element.

“We know very well how much the country needs to invest in the athletes in order to make them champions. The kids also know very well that their coaches have treated them like their own children,” Yu said.

Using Zhou’s coach as an example, Yu said, “The coach told me that when she declared training was over, the kid would say ‘got it, stepmother.’ Calling her coach stepmother is a half-joking thing but the coach told me a stepmother was also a kind of mother.”

Yu might have thought such commentary was totally inoffensive but it has drawn a widespread lashing from netizens, especially the young ones, who overwhelmingly came out in support of Zhou Yang and questioned Yu’s “Thank the motherland first” reprimand.

Helped by a highly-centralized and heavily-funded training system, China has emerged as a sports powerhouse in recent years. Nevertheless, more and more Chinese are questioning its rationale and even justification, given increased evidence of the dire straits of most of the unsuccessful athletes who have been abandoned by the system.

While China does invest billions of dollars into its sports machine, tens of thousands of athletes, including former world champions, are found on the brink of poverty each year after they retire from competition or are simply kicked out of the system. Some of them have ended up with low-paid jobs ranging from janitors to masseurs.

On the other hand, tens of thousands of poor Chinese families, such as Zhou’s, send their children to training schools at a very young age amid hope that their sons and daughters can one day be the pride and, perhaps more importantly, a much bigger source of income.

This system has, among many undesirable consequences, produced what may be generations of men and women who have gone on to clinch Olympic medals but have never enjoyed what they were doing.

“You are the champion. That’s why the motherland embraces you. If you aren’t, only your mom would hug you,” commented a netizen by the name of Chen Danling.

Tags: Zhou Yang ; Short Track Speedskating

[Laura (Lori)]

A follow-up a few days later to the Zhou Yang story - it seems that her gaffe has endeared her to the Chinese people (I love the 'willful girlfriend' comment made by the CCTV anchor)!:

A word of advice to China’s athletes: Thank your nation
Chinese rally around gold-medal speedskater after she is criticized for overlooking the system that trained her
by Mark MacKinnon / Globe and Mail / March 12, 2010

BEIJING — The Olympic flame may be out in Vancouver and the speed-skating oval gone dark, but in China the controversy dubbed “Thank You-Gate” continues to flicker.

Eighteen-year-old Zhou Yang could do nothing wrong on the ice in Vancouver, dashing to gold medals in the women’s 1,500 short-track speedskating competition and the 3,000-metre relay.

But she drew criticism from a senior Chinese sports official when she thanked her parents, her teammates and her coaches for helping her to gold, but omitted to praise her country and her government.

The backlash, however, turned against the scolding official, as ordinary Chinese rallied around Ms. Zhou, and the demands that she praise her country first soon became the target of derision and ridicule in the Chinese news media and Internet.

Read the entire story at:

www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/a-word-of-advice-to-chinas-athletes-thank-your-nation/article1499481/

+++

Tags: Zhou Yang ; Short Track Speedskating ; Chinese
“It’s my dream. After winning the gold I might change a lot, become more confident and help my parents have a better life,” an out-of-breath Ms. Zhou told state-run Central China Television after setting an Olympic record while winning the 1,500-metre gold on Feb. 20.

The slip might have gone unnoticed amid the celebrations, but a senior Chinese sports official took umbrage at the fact Ms. Zhou didn’t thank the national athletics system that had trained her ever since she was discovered at the age of eight in her hometown of Changchun, in northeast China.

“It's right to respect and thank your parents, but you also have to have the country in your heart. The country must come first. Don't just talk about your parents,” said Yu Zaiqing, deputy director of China's General Administration of Sport.

Mr. Yu, who is also an International Olympic Committee vice-president, added that the country’s sports system needed to pay more attention to the “moral education” of its athletes.

The remarks highlighted the strong tie between sports and politics in China, where children as young as 6 are often plucked out of their schools and placed in government-funded sports academies. Isolated from their families for years of gruelling training; their lone goal is to help China climb the medal charts at the next Olympic Games, thereby achieving its desired status as a sporting superpower.

Often, athletes have no choice as to which events they compete in. Ahead of the Vancouver Games, a dozen gymnasts and martial artists were sent to Whistler for a six-week camp to learn half-pipe snowboarding, an event Chinese officials decided there was an opportunity to win medals.

Ms. Zhou’s family tried to shield her from the criticism, telling reporters that the speed skater was naive. “Zhou Yang is very introverted, her life is eating, sleeping and training,” an aunt who gave her name as Wang told the Associated Press. “Of course her parents have sacrificed a lot, too.”

Chinese media figures and on-line pundits were more blunt.

“The country is so confident, there is no need to hear her people complimenting her every day, otherwise, it’s like a willful girlfriend who requires her boyfriend to say ‘I love you’ everyday,” opined Bai Yansong, a famous television anchor on CCTV. “Zhou worked hard to be champion and loves her parents. This is love for the country. There is no need to say it out loud.”

Online, where thousands of Chinese posted opinions in favour of Ms. Zhou and scornful of Mr. Yu, one cheeky person drew up a mock thank-you speech and suggested it could be used by all Chinese athletes in the future. It begins praising “my country, my leaders, the National Sports Administration, the local government and local sports department” and continues on to thank the athlete’s doctor, chef, the “lady from the street committee who delivered coal to my family during the winter” as well as IOC chief Jacques Rogge.

Mr. Yu’s entry on Baidu Baike, a Chinese site similar to Wikipedia, was temporarily changed to read “Yu Zaiqing, male ... no mother and no father, raised by the Communist Party.”

Despite the uproar supporting her heartfelt initial comments, Ms. Zhou nonetheless corrected the record the first time she was given the chance, putting her gratitude in the proper order.

“I thank the country for providing us with excellent conditions, for giving us the excellent conditions for our Olympic campaign,” she said in comments that appeared on several web sites this week. “And I thank everyone who supported us, I thank our coaches, I thank the staff, and I thank my mom and dad.”[/img]

[Laura (Lori)]

Zhou-Gate is like the Energizer Bunny - and the pendulum swings...

Olympic champion accused of milking gold medal
Huang Jingjing / Global Times / April 12, 2010

A Chinese Winter Olympics champion who won accolades for her outspokenness and filial piety is finding that the glitter on her gold medal is fading a bit.

She was rewarded about 5 million yuan ($732,718), including a new apartment after she returned to China but she apparently went too far when she reminded a Party secretary that they owe her one more thing.

"My parents are still out of jobs," Zhou Yang, 19, from Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin Province, told local authorities during a chat prior to a public celebration of her Olympic achievement.

Zhou made the comment after the city's Party secretary asked her, "What more can we do for you?"

Read the entire article:

china.globaltimes.cn/society/2010-04/520893.html

+++
During the games in February, Zhou won gold during the women's short track speed skating 1,500 meters. She also helped the Chinese team win the women's 3,000 meters relay. She became the province's first Winter Olympic champion.
The gold medallist received awards that totaled about 5 million yuan from the State, the province and the city plus some other institutions. She got a 94-square-meter apartment worth about 300,000 yuan ($43,947) from the local government, the China National Radio reported last week.
Zhou's comments after the award ceremony moved many people.
Zhou said that she was grateful to her parents and she was confident that her accomplishment at the games would make life better for her parents.
Zhou's parents are both laid-off workers. Her mother sells handmade sweaters and her father runs a small welfare lottery station at their home. Each month, they take home about 1,000 yuan ($146).
Zhou received public support after a top sports official criticized her for thanking her mother before her country.
However, her jobs request made some think she is asking for too much.
A commentator from the Xinhua News Agency said Olympic medallists should not use their achievements to seek privilege.
"Currently, the number of people waiting to be employed total 200 million. Zhou's demand is hard to stop people from thinking that she's securing advantages through her influence," Wang Jingyu of Xinhua said.
Internet users also piled on the criticism.
"I was greatly touched when you said you want a better life for your parents. But now you are so greedy," an Internet user said on 21cn.com.
She had some supporters.
"Zhou just told the truth. It's the official who raised the question to begin with. There's nothing wrong with a desire to help her laid-off parents," Yang Lei, a Beijing computer engineer, told the Global Times.
Zhou tried to avoid reporters after the incident was reported, the Harbin-based New Evening News said Sunday.
"My child made the request without thinking," said Zhou Jiwen, the athlete's father, adding that the family received enough awards from the country.
A commentary by Yangzhou Evening News suggested that authorities should help athletes in need before they win medals.
"If Zhou Yang is not a champion, her family's poverty would not be known to anybody. But now, everything changed," Ma Erli, a columnist said on eastday.com, said.

-------------------------

A columnist offered an opinion on the matter:

Zhou Yang: Skating on thin ice
Olympic gold medalist comes under fire for her honest responses to empty gestures
by Abby Lavin / April 13, 2010

www.cnngo.com/shanghai/none/chinese-speedskater-zhou-yang-talks-lot-706202

Chinese speed-skater Zhou Yang tore it up at the Vancouver Olympics this year, taking home a gold medal in the women's speed-skating 1,500 meter final.

But Zhou's record-breaking performance was eclipsed by the remarks she made after the fact. When asked what her gold medal win meant to her, Zhou responded: "The gold medal will bring a lot of changes to my life. I will be more confident and it will improve the lives of my parents."

Kids these days! It's all, "my mother's health 'this'" and "my father's well-being 'that'". Fortunately Yu Zaiqing, deputy director of China's State General Administration of Sports went on the record to set Zhou straight: "It is okay to thank your parents [after winning the gold medal], but you must thank your country first and foremost. Don't just mention gratitude for parents and then leave it at that."

d*mn straight.

Yu also noted that today's athletes needed a stronger grasp of 'sports ethics'.Judging from Zhou's gratitude to her family after her big win, she certainly hasn't been getting enough ethics in her Wheaties.

Zhou is under fire again this week, with netizens calling her greedy and opportunistic. When the Party secretary in her hometown of Changchun asked her, "What more can we do for you?", Zhou had the cajones to respond: "My parents are still out of jobs."

Zhou forgot to mention that her parents take home the princely sum of RMB 1,000 each month (Lori's note: the previous article equates this to about $146 per week) selling handmade sweaters and lottery tickets. Someone better school this child in ethics right quick before her demands get out of hand. [/img]

Tags: Zhou Yang / Short Track Speedskating

[Laura (Lori)]

Short track team's 'mother' wants to stay
China Daily / March 18, 2010



Beijing - Li Yan missed her daughter so much that she 'adopted' a team to help fill the void.

Four years ago, she left her now five-year-old daughter with her husband in the United States to become head coach of the Chinese short track speed skating team.

To alleviate the pain of being away from her youngster, she immersed herself in her work so much that she came to call the skaters in her charge her "children".

Read the entire article at:

www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2010-03/18/content_9607850.htm

+++

Tags: Li Yan / Short Track Speedskating
Her 'kids' came to the fore at the recent Vancouver Winter Games when the Chinese team made history by sweeping all four gold medals in the women's events.

Li wants to keep that happy family together and has confirmed her willingness to extend her contract with the team. She also wants to move her real family back to China.

"I am Chinese, so my first choice is the Chinese team," said Li. "My family has always supported me. So if I decide to stay in China, my family will be back as well this time."

After the Turin Winter Games in 2006, Li's contract with the US short track speed skating team ended and she chose to come back to help the China squad.

As in any family, it was far from smooth sailing and she went through a difficult time after the retirements of some of the veteran skaters.

She also had to conquer a conflict in training concepts and earn acceptance from the young skaters, especially team leader Wang Meng, who claimed China's only gold medal in short track in Turin.

"I had heard the new generation had a very negative attitude when I was in the US but when I had to face them myself, I felt at a complete loss initially," Li said. "I didn't expect that even some English words I used in training would disgust them."

What's more, Wang emerged as the team's problem child and even declared to withdrew from the national squad.

Although Wang was slapped with a ban, Li, whose star pupils have included US men's Olympic champion Apolo Anton Ohno, knew she had to do something to remedy the situation.

When Wang finally returned to the fold, she found something in her coach had changed.

"When I suffered a waist injury in 2008, Li helped me a lot in training," Wang said.

"She reduced my intensive training tasks and told me that if I did enough I could take a rest. It made me feel very comfortable in front of the whole team and even more willing to finish the full training tasks."

With a newfound self-belief installed in her by the coach, Wang broke the women's 500m world record of 43.671 seconds held by Evgenia Radanova of Bulgaria soon after with a time of 43.326. The record had stood for seven years.

"I know all those children are working very hard and I will never fail to live up to their trust in me," Li said. "I know I have to lift the team to succeed no matter how hard it is."

Li fulfilled her commitment in Vancouver, where China dominated the event's medal standings with four golds and usurped the once mighty South Koreans.

"We made the right decision to invite Li Yan to coach the team four year ago. She brought a new concept to the team and made a total change," said team leader Yang Zhanwu.

Now, Li is leading the team to Bulgaria for the World Championships this weekend. Her contract with the Chinese team ends in May.

"After coming back from Vancouver, the officials and the team were very busy so we didn't get the chance to discuss renewing the contract," Li said. "Li is an outstanding coach. We are very satisfied with her work and all the skaters trust her," said Zhao Yinggang, director of China's Winter Sports Administrative Center. "We will sit down and discuss further cooperation after the World Championships."[/img]

[Laura (Lori)]

Well, Li Yan got her wish! She's been granted a contract extension thru 2014, according to a high-ranking Chinese Winter Sports official.

I'm not posting the link, 'cause my anti-virus program deemed the site unsafe (meaning they probably think you need Viagra or a 'high-quality' watch in addition to Short Track info), but if a suitable article comes up, I'll post it...

[Deleted]

Short, sweet, suitable.

BEIJING - China short-track speed skating head coach Li Yan will continue at the team for another four years, announced a top official of the Chinese winter sports on Sunday.
Zhao Yinggang, director of China's Winter Sports Administrative Center said Chinese team have signed Li Yan a four-year extension to her current deal that expired at the end of April.

[Deleted]

Preparing for Sochi?

It was a move few of my schoolmates forgot in 1992, when my secondary school shifted to a new campus to the tune of ABBA’s “I have a dream”. Music lessons were dedicated to learning the lyrics to the Swedish pop group’s ditty in preparation for the big move to Anderson Road.

Now, ABBA were not the coolest band in a 90’s rock-and-roll/alternative era of Radiohead, Blur, Oasis and Red Hot Chilli Peppers. But somehow, the retro tune was singing in my head this week as I walked into a lecture room filled with 80 people who had signed on for what skeptics have tagged as Mission Impossible.

It was Day 1 of the Short Track Speed Skating Camp, a three-day trial to pick six athletes for an International Skating Union programme in Changchun, China. Young and old, ages 10 to 55, Singaporeans came together for a first – or last for some of the older folks – shot at Winter Olympic Games glory.

Wait a minute, winter games? As in snow-capped mountains, not found in sunny Singapore? Teo Ser Luck, Senior Parlimentary Secretary, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, says he’s received much criticism since the idea was first mooted this year.

Where will athletes train? Why waste money on the impossible? Cool Runnings, the hilarious 1993 movie about a Jamaican bobsled team who went to the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, came to my mind when I first heard the idea of Team Singapore in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

But figure skaters, ice hockey players, inline skaters answered the Singapore Ice Skating Association’s call for dedicated athletes willing to take a leap of faith with them, and for Singapore. Funding will be limited, and an Olympic-sized rink will only be up in 2012. And they stayed to skate with ISU consultant coach Yves Nadeau.

Vancouver’s winter games were celebrated for the athleticism of American snowboarding star Shaun White, downhill skier Lindsey Vonn and South Korean figure skating darling Kim Yu Na.

It could well be many more years before Singapore unearths its very own Apolo Ohno, but hearing Majulah Singapura played in 2018, or 2022 will be such a tropical treat.

Maybe then, ABBA will finally be cool.

[Laura (Lori)]

Hi, Gasp - I've copied your post to a new Singapore thread on this board - thanks!

[Deleted]

Okay

[Laura (Lori)]

Ladies’ 3000M relay gold medalists - World Cup 1 in Montreal (L to R): Yang Zhou; Unknown; Nannan Zhao; Unknown; Kexin Fan; Unknown (also pictured - Canadian Bronze medalist Marianne St-Gelais) ~ Photo Credit: Elena Viviani (used with permission)

Tags: Yang Zhou / Nannan Zhao / Kexin Fan / Qiuhong Liu / Hui Zhang / Meng Lin / Marianne St-Gelais / Elena Viviani / Short Track Speedskating