Jarhad's Junk Site

I was very fortunate to be an integral part of the 1st Asian Youth Games Singapore 2009 as a table tennis technical official with Singapore Table Tennis Association, and this is my first time being part of an international multi-sport event.  Here are my personal thoughts and feedback on what I've experienced at Toa Payoh Sports Hall during this event.

Food

It is very important to get proper nourishment in order to carry out one's duties effectively.  Although I was quite busy especially in the first few days that I didn't have the time nor appetite to enjoy proper meals, the food catered was less than appealing.  Granted it is our army caterer SFI, it was the menu that I was disappointed with - they served very similar western food for every single meal.  I could do without some of the potatoes and get some rice instead.  And try to have more variety in the type of food provided, I don't just want western food all the time.  Maybe this was just happening at my venue, I don't know about the other venues.

Competition/General Management

A successful competition requires a competent Competition Manager.  Yes, this is an internal affair of the table tennis fraternity, but I think people should be reviewed based on their performance and reassigned tasks that are more suited for them if we want next year's YOG to be successful.  However, I understand that due to some red tape, this doesn't happen, so everyone else on the ground has to pick up the slack to make things happen because the country's reputation is at stake.

That aside, I get the feeling that the various operations are very disjointed with little support for each other - the operations centre has its own Results team that keeps hounding me (STTA) for player lineups and results.  It would be much more efficient if STTA can handle the entire processing of the results without having to go through a middleman to get to the media and guests.  Furthermore, the runners who relay the results and operations centre do not seem very supportive of other administrative needs that STTA has yet demands so much from us.

Website

I was very disappointed that despite them rushing me for the results, they were very slow in updating them on the web.  I can forgive them for the slow speed, but they even posted several errors in the results that were different from the version I submitted to them.  Fortunately I was given access to the STTA website to upload the latest accurate results for people's reference.

Volunteer Management

It was the volunteers that made this event such a success.  There was such a huge pool of volunteers that many of them ended up having nothing much to do and were just there to soak up the atmosphere, as compared to us poor technical officials (TOs) at the field of play who do most of the work.  I think TOs deserve more recognition.  For instance, TOs are not given the same package of souvenirs that volunteers get (I'd rather get the nice cap with the red linings instead of the plain white one that says Technical Official on the side, and I was so looking forward to getting the waist pouch as well).  Don't give me the argument that because we are paid (it's just a pittance allowance) so we shouldn't get all the freebies - then see what happens if we TOs don't come, you can't even run the competition, whereas you can easily get replacements for volunteers, who don't need specialised knowledge and expertise.

Also, I would prefer not to have different volunteers reporting for different shifts every day, because that means having to waste time and effort training and explaining everything to them batch by batch.

Sound System & Announcer

There were a couple of announcers/emcees allocated to us, but they all had no knowledge of table tennis, and took turns coming on different shifts.  So it took time for them to learn about the sport and how to read the fixtures and results passed to them.  As for the sound crew DJ, they were quite new to a sporting event and were not supplied with the appropriate music to play during the event.  When I was more free midway through the competition, I brought my own discs to demonstrate the type of music and when to play them to pump up the crowd.

Audience / Spectators

Many of the venues had poor attendance and ticket sales.  Firstly, since the ticketing is managed by SISTIC, the price of the tickets become slightly overpriced, especially for people who want to come everyday.  Secondly, the timing of the games clashes with school time and examinations, so being the meritocratic society that we are, academic results are more important so many students would rather study.  It would be so much better if the school calendars could be tweaked slightly to allow educational field trips to the various venues to learn more about the different sports cheer on the athletes.

Basketball

I was very fortunate to be able to get half a day off to watch the basketball quarterfinals - the Anglican High School venue seemed rather well managed.  Pertaining to the game itself, I think their TOs had it easier since the matches were shorter and had long intervals between matches, totally unlike table tennis.  However, it is quite bad as the crowd had to be kept waiting for the next match.  Also, the FIBA 33 format cannot do with one referee, because the referee has to be positioned outside the 3 point arc and is unable to catch any violations at the baseline - the spectators could see many instances where players stepped out on the baseline but it is not evident from the referee's limited sight.  Two referees should be deployed for all games, not just the finals.

Table Tennis

I would like to improve our computerised draws system, as we've got feedback that it is impressive, but not yet by my standards.  It would also be good if we could have nice plasma TV screens at courtside displaying the scores just like in the Beijing Olympics, instead of the assistant umpires manually flipping the scoreboards, but this will require a lot of hardware and some software support plus some technically trained guys to update the scores play by play.

I think that's all I have to rant about... to a more successful YOG!