Happy Birthday Singapore!!

This was how the table in our apartment loooks like after we went grocery shopping yesterday. Enough to feed an army, I think.

After the lesson learnt on the previous trip to Beijing University of Technology, Jason, Dollah and I left early, as we took the shuttle bus to the venue. It's Jason's first attempt at writing sports and he did his own standupper. Chris and Prem had gone to the shooting venue with the driver early in the morning. Lee Wung Yew will be in action. I hope he gets good results in his third Olympics.

Both Jason and I wore red because of National Day, as we check with each other on the bus. I were to include the MCK watching Xing Aiying into my packaged, as part of the deal with McDonalds. Reaching there, I started calling Linda, the contact person for the MCK. With such a short time given, we managed to film the kids talking to Jason, and them walking into the hall to watch Xing Aiying play. Before Xing Aiying goes into action, I began to talk to Jason about Lin Dan, Tafik Hidayat, Lee Chong Wei.

Soon Xing Aiying took her place in court, playing Belarus' Konon Olga. It was a match that she was expected to win in this Round of 64 encounter. We MCK were cheering for her at the stands as we watched the procedding. So was Team Singapore. But our cheers were drowned by the Malaysians who were rooting for Lee Chong Wei. A look at the draw and I shook my head. Ronald Susilo will be playing against Chongwei, if he get through Round of 64. As Aiying wasn't feeling well, she bowed out of the competition 19-21, 12-21.

During the post interview, which Jason conducted in English. I could see that she was struggling with conversing in English. She was trying very hard to bring across the message to us that she felt bad at being knocked out this early, but today wasn't her day and she had really did her best. I figured I had better conduct post interviews in Mandarin as some of our athletes really have problem with speaking English. Her coach said Xing was too anxious in wanting to kill the game too early, leading to unforced errors. Jason's opening link was slightly too long and he spoke about how tough Aiying was. But I guessed it's alright as this link is before the match. Nonetheless, let's hope we will get better news from Wang Yew. I really hope I'm not the jinx to Team Singapore.

Back at the IBC, Prem and Chris had failed to get any soundbite from Shooting. Huh? How come? They went there too late, and Wang Yew has already gone back to the Olympic Village. But Wang Yew showed some fine form to finish 17th in a field of 35. His scores of 23, 24 and 22 earned him a total of 69 as the stiff competition enters Day 2 (Aug 10).

I started editing my Badminton packaged with the MCK while Prem and Chris got ready to go to the Water Cube. Tao Li will compete in the heats of the women's 100m butterfly while Ting Wen lines up for the women's 400m individual medley heats. With world class swimmers improving so much in the past year, they have their work cut out. Asian Games gold medallist Tao Li stands a chance of entering the semi-finals at least while Ting Wen will be mainly aiming for a personal best.

Dollah went for a walk at the Olympic Park and he watched the cultural performances there. He said the Adidas store that we all been watching for the past few days is not selling anything. It's strictly for exhibition only as it tells the story of how Adidas has been involved in the Olympics throughout the years.

At the Water Cube, Tao Li created a stir when she clocked 57.77 secs to win her heat, and is the fourth fastest qualifier to enter the 100m butterfly semi finals. Significantly, Tao Li broke her previous national record of 58.96 secs by a wide margin and finished ahead of many world class swimmers. Quah Ting Wen also did well, clocking 4:51.25 in the heats of the women's 400m IM. Her time was not only a PB but a new national mark. The old Singapore record of 4:51.87 was set by Joscelin Yeo in 1999.


When Prem and Chris came back, they didn't have any soundbite from any of the swimmers nor Ang Peng Siong. They couldn't even get into the venue. Swiming was graded as a high demand event and we had to pay US$500 for a ENG spot in the venue. Prem tried calling Peng Siong to arrange for a short interview. But nothing could be done by the time we had to send our feed. So, only the Badminton cum MCK story went out.