Budding Gymnasts?

I'm sure at least half of the world watches the Olympics 2008 held in Beijing. Although Mommy has never been a huge Olympics fan, it was inevitable for me to want to catch some of the Olympics actions like the Table Tennis (which the Singapore Women's Team was piped to make it to the finals and get the first medal for Singapore in 48 years), the gymnastics competitions (including rhythmics) as I was interested to help the girls visualize the purpose of learning gymnastics.

As a side note, please do not get me wrong. I have no intentions at all (nor Daddy for that matter) to push them to join an gymnastics competitions in future, but I'll like them to visualize what they can potentially accomplish if they were to want to aspire to go further in this sport.

The gymnastics competitions were a real eye-opener. He Ke Xin, a Chinese gymnast who won gold in the uneven bars event wowed Kieona over so much that she still pulls the corners of her eyes upwards to imitate her. The costumes of the rhythmics gymnastics were so brightly coloured that Kieona kept talking about them. The rhythmics gymnasts poise and the manner they carried themselves amaze Kieona and Kierra so much that they tried to walk like them. It was fun to watch, as the girls expecially Kieona started to get motivated to press on a little harder and was willing to try more stunts during their weekly gymnastics lessons. Look at what they can do in the below pictures.

Kieona from the top view

Feet touches her head like a contortionist

Kierra joins in

Not quite there yet, but she tries hard till today

While we were all pretty impressed about the gymnastics, we felt that the Table Tennis matches were nothing to shout about. In fact, both Daddy and I are less than proud of Singapore women's team winning the silver medal, simply for the fact that we thought there were more deserving parties. Why, you may ask? Since most of the Singaporeans are pretty proud about having won a medal after 48 years, why are we unimpressed?

If anyone has been following the news, you will probably be able to suss out what Captain Li Jiawei and the coach said & did before & after the match. The coach mentioned that "we only have 10% chance ...(of beating the China team or winning - exact words in brackets not remembered)". Li Jiawei on the other hand, smiled after losing the game. There was an article in the Straits Times forum written by Lek Yew Chuan which echoes my feelings. He wrote the following (in grey) which I quote.

"...I do not want my child to have a defeatist attitude, especially just before the final battle. It is one thing to be realistic but another to give up just before the fight (as head coach Liu Guodong and team captain Li Jiawei did before the final with China), and worse still smile while losing the fight (as Li did). ...... I do not want my child to feel Singapore takes care of only high-potential players and leaves the rest to fend for themselves (as happened to Gao Ning).......I hope my child will not resort to excuses to explain failures (as happened to Gao when the coach did not turn up).....I do not want my child to stop at second best and, worse still, announce proudly she will defend her position next time, instead of going one step further (as Liu did)."

Having been an athlete before, I never had a coach who told me (not ever) that I did not have a chance at winning. (I was the second best runner in my races.) Never have I ever told myself that I can never win. During JC2, my friends from the Commerce Stream had formed a girls' relay team and even though our runners were not the strongest compared to the Arts Stream team, we never thought about giving up and just wanted to win the gold medal for our stream. Practise we did and ran we did. I was the last runner for the team and when the baton was passed to me, I just ran and ran without anything on my mind. We won the medal by a huge margin and my team-mates told me too that when they ran, they just ran with thoughts of winning the race and nothing else mattered. That kind of spirit is what I had been thrust with when I joined any sports. So the defeatist attitude I saw on national TV was not something that sat well with me.

Well, even Daddy was pretty upset about this very unhealthy attitude. If Michael Phelps had even entertained any thoughts of what other people said and if he even for once doubted his own ability, perhaps he would not have been the celebrated miracle he is today - for winning that 8 gold medals within 17 days!

So Kieona, Kierra, always believe in yourself and break out of convention. If it is something you believe in, there is nothing you cannot do. Remember The Secret.