Tag Archives: Olympics

Blessing in Disguise

4 Oct

I thought Monday being a replacement holiday was a blessing in disguise because I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning on Sunday to watch the Ryder Cup until almost the end. The singles battles were thrilling and was of epic proportions especially certain match ups. Sleep and the comfort of my bed could not match them!

And when one stays up until 5.30am, it sure would be tough to wake up three hours later to get ready to go to the office. Thankfully it didn’t have to be like that. Never have I been so caught up with live showing of any sports and following it so closely, not even the recent Olympics because of the time difference; sometimes it’s a putt off. But not so with this year’s Ryder Cup and the 13-hours time difference.

It was worth it! Well done Team USA.

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Killing Time

8 Sep

It has been a brain sapping week for me at the office because of the challenging design project in hand. Every evening I come home mentally tired and have no desire to do anything else.

But the day does not end when we reach home as we still have the tuition run, sending M2 for her weekly night classes. This then becomes physically tiring as well.

Normally when she is at the extra class, we would wait for her instead of making an extra trip back and forth. And the Wednesday class being an hour and a half long, we would go to the driving range to hit a hundred balls to pass the waiting time. But this activity has to be ruled out for now due to the wrist undergoing treatment currently. So what did we do last night?

We went to the sports store, Decathlon and played table tennis in the store itself! Now this is not something we do often, blatantly making a fool of ourselves in public but I think last night was an exception. When one is tired, one ceases to think rationally. Then again, it wasn’t an embarrassing moment but felt carefree.

So we had a little fun destressing moment, a light workout if you may call it a workout and managed to kill some time. I think we were at it for a good 15-20 minutes until the store announced it would be closing. Pity.

Honestly half the time we were laughing instead of playing. No Olympian table tennis performance we displayed but the laughter did worked out the kinks from the work-sapped body and it felt good.

Would we do it again next week? Hmm… We shall see.

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The Power of One

23 Aug

The Rio 2016 Olympics has come to an end. It was a world sporting event of epic proportions. New stars and darlings were born, legends immortalised and unity became stronger than ever, even for a fleeting moment for some countries, mine for one. There was also its fair share of controversies and headline grabbing moments. Part and parcel right?

Although I did not follow the Games as much, I did watch some events: golf, diving, swimming, table tennis and badminton. I remember my first exposure to the Olympics was during the dinosaur summer days of 1984 and names like Carl Lewis, Zola Budd and Mary Decker comes to mind. Track & Field was the event to follow. This time, it’s a whole lot more events and names.

Watching the golf event was obvious because I enjoy the sport. I even stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the men battle for gold. It was exhilarating! Diving was due to my country’s sportswomen qualifying for the 10m platform final. Swimming was of course the lure of the most decorated Olympian swimmer, table tennis because the players were amazing. They inspire me to want to pick up a paddle and play some hard core table tennis! And badminton because of our presence in the finals. I missed track and field live but did catch the main attraction events later.

Malaysia, my country, is not known for her sports prowess in the world arena or at the Olympics save for a couple of events. Although in squash we have a world class player, the racquet sport is not featured at the Olympics. When Team Malaysia qualified for the Badminton Mixed Doubles, Men’s Doubles and Men’s Singles, it was elation and pride that I felt. I am sure 30 million of our population felt the same way too.

Suddenly, there was a sense of togetherness in the nation when our players qualified for three out of the possible five finals! It’s quite a feat denying China the powerhouse of this event for yet another clean sweep like the last outing. The power of one, badminton, had united all of us to dream the impossible: achieving gold. Could we achieve it this time? 

For three nights in a row, the nation came together to root for a golden ending. The giddy excited chorus of yays when a point was scored and the worried groans in unison when a point taken was pretty amazing. Unfortunately as much as we hoped for a happy ending, we came out short and clinched silver in all three events.

We should hold our heads high and be proud of how far our nation has come along, achieving our best Olympics results ever at Rio 2016. The power of one sport, badminton, has done much good for the country and her people. The gold may have evaded us now but we look forward to Tokyo 2020 to clinch our first gold medal.

The Olympics. It was amazing. Thank you Rio 2016.

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Losing Steam

12 Aug

Of late, I have been stuck at all levels of my virtual games so much so, I feel I am losing steam playing them.

Maybe I should stop. And immerse myself in the Olympics happening now in Rio. Or go back to reading especially that book on Genghis Khan that I started but stopped because the mountains were too epic for me. The book has been collecting a mountain of dust since then.

Or I could go back to carving owls. This too has lost steam because I have gotten lazy with it. It can get quite messy when the momentum picks up and I don’t like the cleaning up when I get done. But there simply has not been an opportunity to sit down quietly and be at it. Too much going in and out and this interrupts the focus. Losing steam. Sigh…

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