Tag: Sports

Last week-end did not turn out exactly as I intended.

And I am not one to like that … I tend to plan ahead and not be too happy when I have to change my plans.

After all the time spend with Papillon and practicing for the Dragon Boat races, this was to be a week-end for me.  While I enjoy being with good friends, I also need time for myself regularly.

On Saturday, I was very nervous.  So much so that I could not really eat much all day.  I tried to relax by preparing, testing and re-testing all my equipment, but that did not help much.  I went to explore the race site, but that did not help either.

On Sunday, I was awake early, and just went to East Coast Park.  I was as ready as I will ever be for my first Triathlon.

I still had to wait a long time.  I saw the start of the “Elite” Race, both men and women and saw the finish of the men race two hours later.  And I was still waiting.

It was finally the time for us ‘mortals’ to depart.  Ladies went first; men over 50 were next and at 10:30, it was finally my turn to dive into the water.  The start of the swim is always difficult because there are a lot of people trying to swim over, through and across each other.  I had two laps of 750 m each ahead of me.  The first lap went OK.  As I dove back for the second lap, I could see really black (and I mean BLACK) clouds approaching.  By the 250 m mark, the wind was getting up and whipping waves of 1 to 1.5 m; the rain was not far behind.  The last 250 m of the swim, which I barely survived, were the toughest I ever had to swim.  The sea was like a washing machine, with waves 1.5 to 2 m high coming from all directions.  There were kayaks and jet skis around to help any swimmer that might have a problem.  I actually glanced at a jet ski rescuing a kayak that had capsized!  I finally got out of the sea in driving rain.

  Just a thumbnail, but it proves I was there …

It was now on to the bike, and 40 km ahead of me.  I rested a bit during the transition, but quickly got on all my ‘stuff’ and waded through the mud to get to the bike start.

 I started on the first lap of 10 km. 

By the way, for all those who wondered, it is not that bad to ride a bicycle with wet pants.

The going was tough as the wind was still building, and the rain was still falling.  The return was even tougher, as it was against the wind.  By the time I arrived at the starting point, ready to start my second lap, the organisers stopped us and I found out that they had stopped the whole race as conditions we getting too dangerous.  Lightning was detected nearby and therefore they preferred to stop and wait.

I had just swam and cycled for close to one hour and I was not sure that waiting was really what I wanted to do.  I discussed with a friend who left 20 minutes after I did, and he told me that he was not even allowed to do a second swimming lap.  He was also the last group to be allowed to leave.

I decided to go home.

Than I called my friends from Papillon who were racing in a “Charity” race on the Singapore River, representing ExxonMobil who was one of the main sponsors.  They told me that they were in the finals and so, I went to watch.

When I arrived, I was coerced into rowing.  Vincent was king enough to let me use his team shirt as I did not even have the right uniform; I left my camera, phone and  wallet with friends and I decided that I did not really mind if I got my shorts wet.

Fortunately, we had help from unexpected friends:

 and our vice captain Jonathan had put on his ‘game face’

We were competing in the “Open” division, and therefore against mostly men’s teams.

The race was tough, and very competitive.  First, second and third were separated by only 1.5 seconds and we finished 0.08 seconds ahead of third place!  Silver medal for Papillon.

We were part of the award ceremony with Derk Hartgerink (the Chemical plant manager) also waiting for his reward as a sponsor

 and we finally got our reward – and the whole team rejoiced once more with the Singapore skyline in the background

Not quite what I had planned, but sometimes, that is good too!

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Papillon can be French for ‘Butterfly’, or it can be a breed of dog.  It is also the pen name for a French convict who escaped from a penal colony in French Guyana.

That’s all history. 

Papillon is also the name of the Dragon Boat team I have been training and racing with for the last 14 months. Less than a month ago, we were denied a place in the semi-finals of the grueling “Singapore Festival” open race by a mere 0.5 seconds.  We knew that our next opportunity would come at the Corporate Community Games (CCG) – a multi-sport competition where corporate teams compete against each other over two week-ends.  This time, we would enter a true ‘mixed’ competition where each team was required to have five women and five men rowing.

ExxonMobil had also entered two men’s teams, which was run in the morning.  “Sea Blades” made it to the semi-finals and “Ace” made it into the finals.  Competition was tough and “Ace” placed a very respectable fourth.

All of last year, ‘Papillon’ was the under-performing team of ExxonMobil. While “Ace” and “Tiger Lilies” won the Jurong Island competition and did very well at the Singapore Regatta, and “Ace” and “Tiger Blades” did well in the CCG, ‘Papillon’ always seemed to fail at the last hurdle.

In the heats, we were first, just ahead of Glaxo Smith Kline, and well ahead of Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays (Lot’s of banks seem to find the time to enter this competition…).  The victory meant that we qualified directly for the semi-finals.  Unfortunately, we were drawn in the same semi-final as the only team to beat our time in the heats – The Police Sports Association.

When the semi-final came, we were ready and did an excellent time, just behind the Police.  Unfortunately, only the winning team qualified from each of three semis, with the next 2 best times.  We had the fourth best time of the semis and therefore qualified for the finals with the Police, OCBC (Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation), HSBC (Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank Company) and  Keppel Shipyards. HSBC had won the competition in 2006 and had a better semis time than we did.  OCBC, Keppel and Police had won their respective semifinals.  A tough fight ahead.

The final was ‘the perfect race’.  Police and OCBC were ahead and racing each other for first place.  Papillon was fighting with HSBC and Keppel for third place.  Our ‘hard ten’ mid-way through gave us a small lead; the final charge did the rest and we ended up third, with about 1 second lead over HSBC.

Time seemed to stop.  All the efforts of the past months, all the training finally paid off.  Ben was so elated that he threw away his paddle.  Coach Patrick was silent for the first time since I met him. The rest of us were cheering and waving our paddles in the air.  From shore, a faint refrain of “EM! EM!” made it across the water. We composed ourselves enough to row back to the docks and almost capsized as all the right rowers left the boat at the same time – after all this time, we can still act like amateurs!

Presentation of the main actors – by captain Su Li:

• Thanks William, for sacrificing your Church-going time last Sunday, to join us through the medal-winning journey.
• Thanks Jon for rushing down straight after work to be our pacer, and always be a supportive vice-captain, negotiating with Vincent on all big/ small issues, despite your hectic schedule of TA.
• Thanks go to Freddy for being activated at last min to be a pacer w/o any grumble, Always readily supporting us, being it to drive us/ paddles/ drinks/ food around. If Vincent is Dragon Boat “founder” then Freddy is our Papillon “god-father”.
• Thanks to Desmond, who has not let any of us down, for remaining composed throughout the race as a pacer, Thou it’s his first race as a pacer, he had displayed extreme composure. Of course, Samuel, the pacer seat will still be yours, provided u are “running” in the gym @ UK now. Haha… which I believe u are, since u had brought the running gear thousand of miles. To reward Desmond, to let him go back to his Backpack role. Think he will love u for that. ^.^
• Thanks to Yen Nee for being there with us, despite her photo-shot is coming soon n she needs to get ride of her tan line. She is with us, giving us the strong pull that we need to get through the Finals. I can see the joyous face in your face, after we had passed the finishing line. ^.^
• Thanks to Marilyn, for coming down readily, despite the little girl at home waiting for Mummy to be back home. It’s not easy to be a drummer, and as Dawn summary had wrote, U did a prefect job, except that we got “Ma Ta” next to us lah… no choice, kanna caught. hehee… She was so calm where me n Desmond was panicking to ask her to pick up the white buoy. hehee…
• Thanks to Jessica, as Freddy’s says, you’ve done 3 gruelling races in a day. That showed that age is not a barrier to keeping fit. Without your constant support last year, we might not even had a mixed team found.
• Thanks to Pierre, who has acted as Stand-in gym coach when Patrick is not around, and for sponsoring the Post-CCG celebration dinner aka Pizza n KFC n drinks n your wonderful place. N yes, pls stay there for as long as u can, as we will be having more celebration to come. ^.^ Thanks for also making us “famous” by including us in your Blog. Maybe next time we can google for our name and it will appeared.
• Thanks to BEN!! Because you dare to dream big and we are here!! Frankly, I’m always very pressurized by you when u start to talk “big” about winning medal. Thanks for letting me believed also that our team can DO IT!! and I now believed that “GOLD Medal” for JI is within our REACH!!
• Thanks to our dearest n beloved Coach, who we now knows had more than coaching skills in his bag of knowledge, He is also gg to be the greatest Cook! Err,,, btw, I had told my dad about your “restaurant”. We interested to book a table this sat for my family dinner. Can hor. Table for 10 pls. ^.^
• (by PJO) And let’s not forget Thanks for our Captain Su Li without whom the team would not be what it is today.  She does not limit her role to organising Dragon Boat events, she also doubles as our Social Secretary – constantly on hte look out for opportunities to further build the team with outside activities.

The excitement was only beginning.  The rest of the EM family was waiting for us and seemed just as happy at the results.  I floated through the  medal ceremony; we probably all did. 

 

BackRow: Freddy, Ben, Desmond, Yen Nee, and Jonathan

Middle row: Su Li and Christy

Front row: Pierre, Jessica, Dawn, Marilynn and William

Front Front: Coach Patrick

We had a party at my apartment afterwards.  There was champagne, beer, soft drinks, excellent chilly fish, bad pizza and KFC.  We listend to, and sang along with Queen: “We are the Champions!” and listened to Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd and Lute music – quite a combination.  A good time was had by all.

Pictured above are: seated from left: Captain Su Li, Coach Patrick, vice-Captain Jonathan; standing from left: Christy, Dawn, Ben, Pierre, Desmond, Yen Nee and Jui Goy.

In two weeks, we have our next competition: the Jurong Island Race.  Last year, we did well in the heat, and messed up in the finals.  We have matured as a team in the last year.  We will see what that brings.

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On Saturday, with about 5000 other people, I participated in the Singapore Dragon Boat Festival 2007.  You can read more about it in the SDBA site at www.sdba.org.sg where the final results will also be posted.

ExxonMobil Papillion, my team, was entered together with three other EM teams in the Inter-Corporate Open.  The Tiger Lillies was entered in the Inter-Corporate Ladies.  Even though we have a mixed team, since there is no mixed category, we entered the open just for the experience.

This is one of the largest Dragon Boat competitions of the season, with 115 20-person teams and 161 10-person teams entered.  It is also the longest at 800 meters.  Let me assure you, this is a really long race!

We were entered as ExxonMobil Team “A” and we had the ExxonMobil “Rookies” in our heat.  The rookies are our Veteran Team – this is their first competion.  We knew we had a tough heat, because HP always is dangerous, even their “B” team, and NewUrbanMale is improving every year.

We had a really good start, just behind HP and even with NUM.  The rest of the teams were already behind.  HP kept pulling away, but we stayed right with NUM.  I am very proud of the team as we kept rowing our rythm and our race, not trying to chase HP, or do something drastic to move ahead of NUM.  They did a first hard-10 (ten hard strokes which are designed to intimidate the opposition) and moved slightly further ahead.  We did a hard-10 and move slightly ahead at about 600 m.  For the finish, we were neck and neck, but it became clear that we had no more to give.  HP finished in 4m38; NUM did 4m43.61 and we did 4m44.11, half a second behind, and half a second out of second place, which would have qualified us for the semi-finals.  The “Rookies” finished in 4m59, richer for the experience, and hopefully better prepared for the real ‘veteran’ competitions coming later in the year.

I am very pleased with our performance.  We did a good race and were beaten by better opposition.  At least, we did not beat ourselves – we have done that before.  We should do better in the next races where we will be competing against other mixed teams.

The “refinery” team was also third in their heat.  Fortunately, ExxonMobil “Ace”, our number one men’s team finished first in their heat in a very good 4m30 and have qualified for the semi-finals.

The “Lillies” had a very tough heat and finished third, good enough to go direct to the final of the ladies competition.

EM only competes in the 10-person boats.  Just for comparison, one of the top teams in the National 20-men boat did a 3m14 time for the same 800 meters.  The longer boats are faster, but we still would have a long way to go before we could possibly come close to that!

Sunday …

The “Ace” team qualified for the finals, and finished 6th – a very good result.  One surprise: there were NO banks represented in the finals.  Usually they are the stronger teams, but this year, HP and NUM seem to dominate.

The “Lillies” were also 6th in their final, having improved their time by 8 seconds from the semi-finals.  A very good result.

It was an excellent week-end.  I also discovered a part of Singapore where I had not gone before: Bedok Reservoir.

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