WEEKLY ROUND-UP: Sports happenings in Singapore (4-10 Jan)

SINGAPORE — Here is a round-up of sports events and developments in Singapore in the past week (4 to 10 January):

Encouragement awards for this year’s SOF-Peter Lim Scholarships

The Singapore Olympic Foundation (SOF) will be disbursing “encouragement awards” instead of its usual SOF-Peter Lim Scholarships this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many local and international sports competitions, thus affecting the selection criteria for scholarship application.

The quantum of the awards will be reduced, so that more recipients can qualify. For example, High-Performance Under-18 award recipients this year would received $2,500 instead of $5,000.

With the lack of competition benchmarks that usually determine the eligibility of the recipients, the qualification criteria will largely be based on their household income and a nominal activity level in their sports.

Last year, 289 athletes received the SOF-Peter Lim Scholarship. Since the scholarship was inaugurated in 2011, 2,930 scholarships amounting to $8 million have been awarded to athletes from 54 sports. In July 2019, Lim pledged another $10 million to further fund the scholarship until 2030.

Interested student-athletes can apply directly on the SOF’s website. Submissions will close on 10 February at 4pm.

SSA hires Paul Oberman as technical director for water polo

The Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) announced on Saturday (9 January) that it has hired Australian Paul Oberman as its technical director for water polo. This is a new position that will enable the SSA to implement its plan for regional water polo supremacy.

Oberman, 52, competed in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He was assistant coach of the Australia national water polo team, and also the head coach at the Western Australian Institute of Sport, where he won Coach of the Year in 2017.

As technical director, he will complement the role of the head coach by focusing on long term developmental programmes while the head coach focuses on the tactical improvement of the national team. He will also review and improve multi-year athlete and coach development programmes at the club and school levels.

Following the men’s water polo SEA Games defeat in 2019, SSA conducted a comprehensive review of its water polo strategy and identified key gaps.

“While we have had good coaches in the past who were able to steer the men’s teams to glory at each SEA Games, long term sustainability was an issue as we had gaps in pipeline and technical development capabilities. This meant that our progress would eventually stagnate and others would catch up and they did,” said Dominic Soh, SSA’s vice-president for water polo.

“The TD role is a crucial piece in our strategy that will not only help us regain our SEA Games gold medal but also enable us to up our game at the Asian Games level.”

SSA gives out Curry Bombs to needy families

The Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) gave out Curry Bomb pastries to 500 families within the SG Cares Volunteer Centres and community partner networks on Saturday (9 January), as part of the association’s Corporate Social Responsibility programme.

Working together with its official food-and-beverage partner Neo Garden Catering, and Ministry for Culture, Community and Youth’s (MCCY) SG Cares Office, more than 180 volunteers – including national athletes from artistic swimming, diving, swimming, and water polo, national coaches, technical officials, parents and affiliates – delivered the Curry Bombs to the families.

Joining the volunteers in Yishun was Eric Chua, Parliamentary Secretary of Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and Ministry of Social and Family Development, who distributed together with SSA president Lee Kok Choy and Neo Group executive director Jeffrey Liew to elderly beneficiaries from TOUCH Senior Activity Centre.

Other recipients of the Curry Bombs included families and seniors from organisations such as AMKFSC Community Services, Care Corner FSC, Peace-Connect, and Whampoa FSC. Another 500 Curry Bombs will be delivered to other organisations by the end of January.

The Neo Garden “Curry Bomb For A Good Cause” campaign was launched in October 2020 and aims to sell 30,000 Curry Bombs for charity. To date, a total of 24,603 Curry Bombs have been sold. All proceeds from the sale of these Curry Bombs will go to the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund and the SSA’s One Team Singapore Fund.

Twincity Marathon to return on 10 and 11 July

The 7th edition of Twincity Marathon will return to Cyberjaya and Putrajaya on 10 and 11 July, with a focus on creating a carnival atmosphere for runners to enjoy with their friends and families.

The new tagline “More than a Marathon” and the hashtag #StrideTogether signify the event’s ambition to provide an all-encompassing social experience to match the high-quality race experience.

There are multiple race categories to suit all ages and running abilities: 1km and 3km Kids Dash for the young runners, the 5km Fun Run, the 12km Race, the 21km (Half Marathon) and the 42km (Marathon).

Runner’s entitlements include a stylish high-quality micro-dry event T-shirt, a finisher’s T-shirt (for the half-marathon and marathon participants), a bespoke finisher’s medal, a finisher’s e-certificate and a wide range of refreshments.

Visit www.twincitymarathon.com for more information and to sign up for the event.

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