Training At CCAB 23/08/2010

The Training Group at Reactiv have been putting in their fullest efforts to prepare for Singapore Open which will take place on the 18th and 19th of Sept. Yesterday's training had to be indoors due to the pouring rain. We focused on drills alot and once the rain subsided, we did a few runs before calling it a day. They worked on their running technique by breaking it down into drills such as butt kicks, A skip, B skip and single leg step overs just to name a few.


Picture: Hakeem, Nikita, Calvin and Shalindran seen here doing high knee.


The group will be training at CCAB on Wednesday late afternoon again. Hope to see you there.

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Athletics at YOG (Day 6)

It was a hot and humid start to the final day of the Athletics Youth Olympics Games. The heavy downpour in the evening however did not dampen the spirits of the Youths as they continued to dash across the finish line one last time.

Ranjitha Raja of Singapore was in the line up for the 1000m Girls B finals and she completed the race coming in a respectable 5th with a timing of 3mins 03.90secs.

Stina Troest (picture below) from Denmark, who is Coach Alfred's friend's athlete came in 2nd in the 400m Girls A Finals with a personal best timing of 58.88secs. Olena Kolesnychenko from the Ukraine who was the hot favourite to win, but came in 3rd. Aurelie Chaboudez from France came in 1st with a fantastic personal best of 58.41secs


The last event at Bishan stadium was somewhat different. We normally run relays with our own countrymen. But at this Youth Olympics, it was to run under your continent. We had teams like Europe, Americas, Oceania, Africa and Asia

This exciting event started off from the 200m mark where the 1st athlete would run 100m and then pass the baton to the next athlete to run 200m, followed by 300m and finally 400m to the finish line. The Americas dominated both in the Girls and Boys Medley Relay in which the top sprinters took part and showcased their talents once again to the world.

The YOG for Athletics has come to an end. A very good experience for all who have went down to watch at Bishan stadium. An experience which one would never forget.

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Athletics at YOG (Day 5)

Golds and Personal Best timings are what these YOG athletes came here for. Many have already made an impression to the world but there were still a few other events to watch out for at Bishan Stadium on Day 5 of the YOG Athletics.

Zachary Ryan Devaraj from Singapore gave it his all at his final run in the 1000m B Final and that got him a personal best timing of 2min 31.75secs. He was one of the other 6 who managed to run a PB.

In the Girls 200m A finals, Nkiruka Florence Nwakwe from Nigeria won the finals with an absolutely stunning timing of 23.46secs which also is her new personal best timing. This final also had many doing their PBs.

Lastly, the highlight for sprint events at Bishan came from the 200m Boys A finals. Zhenye Xie from China who was favourite to win came in 1st with a timing of 21.22secs. It was a 1-2 finish for the asians as Japan took the Silver with a timing of 21.27secs.

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Athletics at YOG (Day 4) - Evening Session

The evening session of Day 4 in Bishan Stadium was the most exciting to watch. We witnessed many A finals and also the crowning of the fastest boy at the Youth Olympics. We start off with the Boys 110m Hurdles.

Australian boy, Nicholas Hough was jubilant as he crossed the line first with a timing of 13.37s. The top 4 athletes managed their personal best timings and this proves what has been suspected all the long; that the Bishan Stadium track was an ideal venue for fast times. It was however, sad to see Nicolas Borome of France clutching his hamstring after the 8th hurdle and then stumbling on his last hurdle before falling to the ground. We at Reactiv wish him a speedy recovery.

Next up was the Girls 400m Finals. Robin Reynolds from USA, who was fastest off the blocks, proved her billing as pre-race favourite by coming in 1st with a season’s best time of 52.57 seconds.

In the 100m Girls Final, Josephine Omaka from Nigeria won the final easily with a time of 11.58secs. A visibly disappointed Myasia Jacobs from USA came in 2nd.

Then came 100m Boys Final, the event which everyone was waiting for. Japanese sprinter Masaki Nashimoto was leading the pack immediately with a blistering start. However Odane Skeen from Jamaica came from behind and took the lead with 40m to go, and won the race comfortably with a personal best time of 10.42secs. Nashimoto and Great Britain's David Bolarinwa dipped at the line together with a time of 10.51secs. Nashimoto however got the nod for second place. So there you have it, Odane Skeen, the Youth Olympic Games Sprint King.

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Athletics at YOG (Day 4) - Morning Session

Today we have the most finals with 11 golds to be won. There are 2 sessions today, the morning and evening sessions. Here is the report for the morning's events.

Singaporean Goh Wei Ning ran in the 100m Girls Hurdles C Finals. She did better in this race compared to her qualification run, although her time of 14.92 seconds was still off of her personal best time. Nonetheless, we at Reactiv want to congratulate her on her participation at the 1st Youth Olympic Games.

In the 400m Boys A finals, top qualifier Luguelin Santos won in a time of 47.11s. It was however a close finish for 2nd place between the boys from South Africa and Kenya. Both of them though managed to register a personal best at the finals.

Liang Wei also did her best for Singapore at the 100m Girls C Finals earlier today with a time of 12.85s.

Stay tuned for the evening updates as we will be witnessing amongst others, Boys 110m H A Final, Girls 400m A Final, Girls 100m A Final and of course the Boys 100m A Final.

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Athletics at YOG (Day 3)

Today marks the 3rd day of the Youth Olympics for Track and Field. The weather is perfectly fine today which was a total contrast of yesterday and the day before. Not too hot and not too wet. The events today are not as exciting as the day before. It will be a long wait before the sprint event, 200m. But nonetheless, the excitement at the stadium was good enough to make this wait worth while.


The qualifications of 400m Hurdles for both girls and boys took place today. Head Coach of Reactiv, Alfred Sim, was at scene today giving his view of races. A coach friend of his from Denmark was here for the YOG. His athlete Stina Troest was participating the 400m H. She is hot favourite as she's ranked 5th this year for World Youth Ranking. Stina was in the last heat of the girls 400m H and the race was dramatic. French girl, Aurelie Chaboudez, finished just a few milliseconds ahead of her but both of them did PBs and are in the gold medal contention.


Just like the saying, the ball is round, in Track and Field, anything can happen in a race. The last heat of the boys 400m H saw the USA boy, Gregory Coleman, stumble at the 4th hurdle. His left leg hit the hurdle causing him to trip. However, that did not stop him from finishing the race and its great sportsmanship seen here at the Bishan Stadium. It was breathtaking to also watch the boy from India, Kumar Durgesh, outrun German Boy Felix Franz in their heats.



Singaporean Ranjitha Raja braved the 16 others today at the 1000m girls event. Her timing of 3mins 07.66secs was 5 seconds shy of her personal best timing but she managed to come in 11th in her heat.
The 200m boys was electrifying. Zhenye Xie from China was fastest overall with a timing of 21.27secs. Tomasz Kluczynski from Poland did a timing of 21.80 and was looking quite good in the race. Another to look out for at the finals will be Patrick Domogala from Germany. These boys are clearly a class above any of our local athletes as their timings today were so close to our national record of 21.14secs. Will we see one of them surpassing it in the finals? We shall wait and see. Good job to them.


Written by: Shalindran
Photos by: Calvin Kang

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Athletics at YOG (Day 2)

So Day 2 kicked off with the Boys Javelin Qualifications and there will also be events such as the 2000m Steeplechase for both Girls and Boys, not forgetting the highlight of day 2, the 100m dash. I was pretty disappointed as I was not really able to catch the events live. I was watching online but it kept buffering every 10seconds, making it difficult to watch. But nonetheless, I managed to get a glimpse of a few performances by the athletes.
It was a case of a fast track for the boys competing in the 2000m SC. This is evident from the fact that seven of them bettered their Personal Best timings during the qualifications. Having said that, I am sure we will see even better runs by this group in the next race.

Another surprising display was the Boys Javelin. 11 out of the 15 throwers threw PBs. The winner however did not achieve his personal best but managed to top the field with the distance of 77.27m on his last throw.

Singaporean Zachary Ryan Devaraj knew he needed to step up his game in this Youth Olympics. He was up against many fast athletes from countries such as Qatar and Ethopia. Despite being left behind by the leading pack, he managed to run a PB with a timing of 2min 32.27seconds.

Liang Wei was the next Singaporean youth put to the test in the 100m Girls qualifications. Her heat was disrupted due to a false start. However, Liang Wei had a powerful start of the blocks on the 2nd run. She had in fact, the fastest reaction time and managed to come in 4th in her heat with a timing of 12.79s which was slightly off her PB of 12.58s.

Next up was the Boys 100m. I got our very own Fastest Boy, Calvin Kang, to give me live updates from Bishan stadium as I gave up buffering from the online platform. Calvin was rather excited about the 100m as it was the event he had been running since a little boy. He gaves us his view on who to look out for in the 100m.

“Is he the next Usain Bolt?? Youngster Odane Skeen from the Jamaica has been the grapevine of this Youth Olympics. Turning 16 in 9 days time, this Jamaican is seeded as the fastest boy in the YOG. The 100m heats still continued despite the slight downpour. David Bolarinwa kick started the 100m heats with a time of 10.62sec and was the fastest overall. Odane on the other hand was not far off finishing top of his heat with a time of 10.63sec after facing 2 false starts. The Asians like the Japs and Thais were also on their game in their respective heats. Overall, the boys weren’t really pushing this was only the qualifications. Expect a fantastic final this Sat morning.”

This rounds up Day 2 of athletics at YOG. Many achieved PBs today. It could have been due to the weather. Whatever the case was, these athletes are really talented. We have much to learn from them.

Tomorrow's events promise to be as exciting, with the 200m sprint on show. Till then,

Written by: Shalindran
Edited by: Hakeem
Pictures: Calvin Kang

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Athletics At YOG (Day 1)

Today marks the first day of the Youth Olympics Games for the Track and Field athletes. The weather was not our usual Tuesday morning sun but rather a scorching sun with little wind. That did not deter the Youths in their quest for medals. Today's events were mostly qualification rounds into the next level.


In the 100m hurdles for girls, we had our very own Singaporean girl, Goh Wei Ning. Being in the 1st heat, she was the quickest off the blocks as compared to those in her round. Her final timing of 15.01secs was only fast enough to be able to run in the lower classifications. Ekaterina Bleskina from Russia was the fastest qualifier posing a time of 13.32sec. However Megan Simmonds from Jamaica (picture below) caught my attention. She was the shortest among all her other competitors but had excellent technique clearing the hurdles. She would be one of the few to look out for at the Finals.



Sean Toh was the next athlete donning the Singapore flag and running 110 Hurdles. A hiccup in the starts caused the athletes in his heat to stop running once the gun was off. Though the siren was already sounded, Sean continued to run for another 40m until he was signaled to stop by one of the officials standing by the side. His final time after the 2nd run was 15.09secs which was more than 1sec of his PB. If not for the disruption, I felt he might have been able to run a better race.

Wendy Enn from the Singapore Sports School ran the 400m. The field for this event was very strong with athletes doing timings like 53s. Wendy clocked a timing of 62.74s. I would predict that the 400m girls final will be a fight between Robin Reynolds from the USA and Bukola Abogunloko from Nigeria.

The last sprint event for that day was the 400m boys. Once again, the youths showed their class by running fantastic timings which have surpassed our national record. One athlete was the talk of the town at this event. Santos Luguelin from the Dominican Republic (seen from the picture below) lead from the start to finish and his superlative time of 46.82secs was well enough to put him at the top.

It is just Day 1 and already we see so many outstanding results. As the days go by, we will be expecting first class performances by the youths. I cannot wait for Day 2 to come as it will be where the speed demons will be unleashed!! The 100m heats.

So till then, here's Shalindran signing off from Reactiv


Credits: Photos courtesy of Weijen Chao and Calvin Kang

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5th All Comers 2010

It has been quite some time since the last update on Track and Field. This is because there has not been much local races. Recently, a new team in the association was formed and they were put to test at the 5th All Comers 2010. The changes were quite significant for example a different competition venue was picked, (ITE SIMEI). Despite the few hiccups, it was a good job done by the new team with a vision to keep moving forward. We saw a Malaysian team (Nordin Jadi Athletic Club) coming over to compete in which many of them did personal best timings. It was a good exposure for our Singaporean Athletes.
As for our training group, since most of us are recovering from injuries, only Nikita and Prayaank were suppose to compete. However, during training that week, Nikita felt the same pain at the knee which many of our athletes have been going through. Thus, I decided that it was not feasible for her to compete but instead to rest and recover. Prayaank took part in the 100m where he did 11.53sec.




I am looking forward to the next big meet in Singapore which is the Youth Olympic Games 2010. Though none of my athletes will be competing, I was very interested in being involved with the Games. Just recently, I got myself accredited for the YOG Athletes Village located in NTU. The training stadium in sports and recreation centre is for Athletics, Weightlifting, Judo, BasketBall, Swimming and Basketball. And I have the privilege to be the National Technical Official of Athletics. It is one of the best place to be, where athletes will be doing their workout and "secrets" being revealed! Watch out for our blog, as I will update the trainings and pictures from the YOG.

Till the next meet, here's Alfred signing off.

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