This author is currently on hiatus for the ignoble cause of mugging. The public is advised to remain calm, as this routine protocol has been shown to have no effect on one's violent tendencies in 96% of cases.
| Sunday, August 17, 2008 |
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Yet another reason to remember Beijing 2008 - Singapore's second Olympic medal after a long 48 years. ^^ (Or as my mum says it, the "Olumpix"!) I nearly forgot all about the ever-important women's table tennis semis which pitted Team Singapore against Korea. It was a blessing in disguise that I had to stay back in school to finish up my chinese compo though, since I left school later because of that and managed to catch the game in the middle of Jiawei's match. Otherwise I would have been home a couple of hours earlier and be napping then, which was my original plan for the day. D: I didn't know it was the team championships though, and thinking that it was the singles my heart sank when the Koreans scored their last point against Jiawei for a nail-biting finish right as my bus trip came to an end. "Oh well, yet another Olympics for the third time running that Singapore narrowly missed the finals, and to the same opponent that denied us our bronze in 2004 too! So close yet so far, good luck for the 3rd/4th placing playoff D:" I was actually considering taking the bus past my stop just so I could watch the whole game, as it seemed that both sides were evenly matched with the scores pretty much tied then on the final round. So if Jiawei had fought to the finish and won, but dragging the match to a long finish in the process, it would be quite a bittersweet event for me xD I got home just in time for the doubles, and when I realised Singapore wasn't out just yet I was pretty much relieved as I was confused. Took me the entire length of the rest of the semis before I figured that it was a team championship and Singapore.freaking.won. Kudos to the entire team, especially our newfound heroine Feng Tianwei. =D Jiawei was quite impatient in that match though, making many costly errors especially in her smashes. We would probably have had a clean win if not for her rashness against the cool Koreans, heh. Thankfully Tianwei gave us the verve needed to clinch a victory and I must say I was impressed with her patience, slowly baiting her time, so much so that the umpire had to impose a time limit of sorts (I still don't kow how it works) towards the end of it. Her mean rallies and the Koreans' amazing defence sure made for a lengthy but spectacular show indeed. I felt the commentator was rather biased towards Singapore though, always rooting for us to win - not that im complaining of course. Like in the fourth match, when he predicted that "Wang Y.G. (Editor's Note: He had a problem pronouncing 'Yuegu' properly, lol) will beat Dang 3-0 and Singapore will progress to the finals, winning their first silver after 48 years." A pity his prediction was completely off and Wang lost 0-3 instead. Good thing we still got to the finals though. Still, our three table tennis girls are all China-born, so I guess it would've been much better to see a Singapore-born local get that far instead. But it's our country they're repesenting after all, and judging by the flurry of SMSes and cheers from crowded kopitiams I think we're generally quite willing to accept foreign talent as one of our own. It's surprising how much more an Olympic medal does for national pride as compared to our annual National Day Parade. Hey, even President Nathan cheered for Team Singapore in the stands when we won (according to a photo in the papers) while all he does during much of NDP is wave a tiny flag about. =P So, it will be Singapore up against the formidable China tonight. I highly doubt we'll manage to win though considering the Chinese team has not lost a single match yet, but I sure hope we put up a good fight. Either way, I don't think we'll mind settling for a silver since that's already damn well good enough. ^^ |
'Twas teh winnar at 8:08 am.
