Monday, 30 July 2012

A Singaporean Gymnast at the 2012 Olympics: Lim Heem Wei

As my regular readers will know, I have been very excited about watching the first Singaporean gymnast Lim Heem Wei to compete in the Olympics, yes I've been talking about it endlessly on my blog. I thought my blog was as good a place as any to share my photos and video that I took of her competing tonight. There were about 8 people from Singapore there tonight supporting her and the capacity of the North Greenwich Arena is 15,000. It was a momentous moment for Singapore Gymnastics and it was so worth buying that ticket just to be there to support my friend Heem Wei. I had even better seats than her parents and yes I did chat to her parents after the competition - it was so sweet that one of Heem Wei's friends (also a Singaporean gymnast) introduced me to Heem Wei's parents as a 老将 of Singapore Gymnastics from back in the 1990s and I was like, LOL 想当年!
That's me on the left, Heem Wei on the right. 

Her parents were such lovely people and despite this being the biggest night of their daughter's life (and possibly theirs too) - they were so casual about it all. Sigh, there was a part of me that wished that my parents had been more supportive of my sporting career when I was national champion all those years ago, but that's so all such a long time ago. I salute you Mr & Mrs Lim - Heem Wei is very lucky indeed to have such wonderful, supportive parents. I have just read another story about terrible Singaporean parenting today, well how about some good news for a change? I would love for an ST journalist to interview Mr & Mrs Lim and talk about them as great parents who have supported and nurtured Heem Wei all the way to the Olympics!

This is why I am so pissed off when I read Singaporeans who write idiotic crap when their athletes don't win at the Olympics - like have you people ever done any competitive sports in their life before? Like I don't mean playing basketball with your mates after school, I mean proper international competitive sports, representing your country in an international competition? Limpeh has been there, done all that back in the 1990s, Limpeh was Singapore's national champion back in the mid-1990s and that is why I can appreciate how hard it is to even get to the Olympics. To be there is already such a glory, yet that's not enough for some Singaporeans? Good grief. Some of you guys need to shut the hell up if you don't know anything about competitive sports. OK I will save my rant for another day - let's just busk in Heem Wei's glory for now.

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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous30 July 2012 at 04:07

    What do you think of this post which claims she's not singaporean? http://singaporedissident.blogspot.sg/2012/01/singaporean-olympic-gymnast-actually.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Limpeh Foreign Talent30 July 2012 at 09:56

      It is a clear example of the anti-PAP camp going insane and discrediting themselves by making such ludicrous claims! Please lah. I met her parents last night okay - they couldn't have been more Singaporean. When I was introduced to them, I spoke to Mandarin (okay, assumption on my part as they are older) and they replied in SINGLISH okay? And from then on, we all spoke in Singlish - there was this little group of 7 or 8 of us at entrance B who were all chatting in Singlish after the competition and no PRC immigrant would be able to speak Singlish like that. We talked about Heem Wei's journey here - from whom she trained with, the various characters involved in Singapore Gymnastics and all the mutual friends we have in the Singapore Gymnastics community (Limpeh was national champion back in the mid-90s ... My sister knows Heem Wei as well (NYP connections) - in fact, my sis knows Wei a lot better than I do and it is just ludicrous to accuse her of being a PRC.

      I get the same bullshit too - I have a hanyupinyin surname and I am accused of being PRC all the time. Groan. I was born in KK hospital. My mum was born in Singapore, my dad in Johor. My 4 grandparents were all born somewhere between KL and Singapore. Yet people take one look at the spelling of my surname and out comes the anti-PRC hatred and I'm like WOAH WOAH WOAH STOP IT. Groan.

      This is what I mean about the opposition needing a sensible, strong, charismatic leader to bring them together before crazy people start making claims like that - now the PAP can use this as an example of why the opposition has no credibility whatsoever.

      Delete
    2. Limpeh Foreign Talent30 July 2012 at 10:07

      OK just left a comment on Singapore Dissident's blog. Let's see if he reacts.

      Delete