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"Train hard or go home". That's what we read on the Singaporean gymnasts' T-shirts yesterday at Shanghai's World Cup Gymnastics competition.
They didn't rank well though, however, compared to the Chinese team, who won gold medals on every event except men's high bar. Newcomer Jiang Yuyuan finished first on the women's floor exercise with a dynamic routine, while her teammate Pang Panpan tied for second place with Kozich. In women's beam action, Pang Panpan, the defending champion, finished second behind her teammate and multiple World Champion, Cheng Fei.
On the men's side, Feng Zhe executed a nearly perfect program and finished first on the parallel bars, ahead his compatriot Huang Xu, and the Korean Yoo Won Chul. Feng Zhe won his second gold medal of the day, tying Latvian Evgeni Sapronenko on vault. And in the last event, men's high bar, Yosuke Hoshi of Japan and Aljaz Pegan of Slovenia tied with a score of 15.525. China's Xiao Qin was third.
Truth be told, your devoted Shanghaiist reporter spent more time in the training room than watching the real competition: Since we had access to the gymnasts, we took a lot of up-close-and-personal photos. Enjoy the slideshow!
Full results: men's competition and women's competition.
Pete Chorba contributed to this article.
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Comparing Singapore gymnasts to those from China is unfair and reveals the ignorance of the article contributor. China has a long tradition of producing world class gymnasts who have competed extensively at events such as the Olympics and World Championships. As a fan of gymnastics, I admire them greatly. It must be noted that China gymnasts are career gymnasts who are rewarded extensively by the state for their contributions. In contrast, Singapore gymnastics only took off in 2004 when a group of young gymnasts took on the challenge to bring gymnastics to a higher level. They are all full time students from top schools in Singapore, which means an 8-hour school day, followed by training till late in the evening. Several of them are also keen learners of various musical instruments and foreign languages at a high level. They are not paid, nor do they receive any incentives, except for a small grant of about USD$250 per year to defray the cost of personal training equipment. They pursue gymnastics purely out of passion. Within a year of training at national level, they took home the 2005 South East Asia Games Gold Team medal, plus a clutch of Individual Event medals. The World Cup is the FIRST time they are competing on the world stage. All 4 gymnasts, despite their lack of experience, managed to make it to the IEFs for at least one apparatus in beam, floor and vault, in a field that included China, Russia, Ukraine, Australia, Netherlands and Canada. That they were able to hold their own showed their mettle, courage and determination. Their T-shirt logo "TRAIN HARD OR GO HOME" is simply a mantra to remind themselves to stay true to their passion. They should be lauded for their efforts, rather than be mocked at. I salute these 4 brave girls from Singapore. Good job!
'rewarded extensively by the state' - I thought there was a huge scandel recently because it turned out so many former Chinese medal winners were mired in poverty, their bodies broken down by the near-abusive training regimines of their youths.