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7
Insight
The first ever Asian Youth Games (AYG) was officially launched by
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday 29 June 2009
under the slogan “Asia’s Youth, Our future”. Some 7,000 spectators,
athletes, and officials attended the two-hour gala ceremony at the
Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The games, which were originally proposed in Singapore’s
candidature document for the inaugural 2010 Youth Olympic Games,
ran to 7 July and drew some 3,600 athletes aged between 14 and
17 plus 800 officials from the 205 National Olympic Committees
(NOCs), along with about 800 media representatives, 20,000 local
and international volunteers, plus over 500,000 spectators.
Athletes from 45 countries took part in the 90 events covering
Aquatics (swimming and diving), Athletics, Bowling, Basketball,
Beach Volleyball, Football, Shooting and Table-Tennis.
Some of the highlights included swimmer Chang Gyu Cheol of South
Korea who won four gold medals and the Games Most Valuable
Male Player Award, Singapore’s female swimming champion Quah
Ting Wen who also won four golds, and Footballer Suh Myeong Won
who won the gold medal with South Korea with eight wins in eight
games. Suh is currently at English Premier League side Portsmouth
trying to replicate the success of his countryman, Manchester
United’s Park Ji Sung.
China made a clean sweep of the table-tennis gold medals with
14 year old Yin Hang winning 3 in the singles and team events.
China also finished top of the medals table with 25 gold medals
and 52 medals overall. South Korea finished second followed by
Thailand, but Singapore punched well above its weight by finishing
fourth with 9 gold medals but third in terms of total medals won
with 30. Given the size of the country and the population, this was
a remarkable achievement and perhaps demonstrates the success
of the policies being pursued through the Singapore Sports Council
(see Feature article on pages 12-13).
Next year, Singapore plays host to the first Youth Olympic Games
which run from 14th to 26th August 2010.
Medal table (top 4 places)
1
People’s Republic of China (CHN)
25 16 11
52
2
Republic of Korea (KOR)
20 17 17
54
3
Thailand (THA)
11 7 2
20
4
Singapore (SIN)
9 6 15
30
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Overall Total
First Asian
Youth Games
A Huge Success