National Teams Notice

The National Team squad and identity is put on hold until we’ve finalized the relays criteria.

Dear Coaches & Athletes,

SAA is keen to launch their new initiative mentioned on Jan 6 during the SAA Appreciation Night Party. The creation of a National Team, National Junior Team and National Youth Team identity now is critical to the success of athletics in Singapore. We believe that through this initiative we will increase our base of athletes and coaches and their performances to help achieve our first milestone at the 2015 Sea Games and beyond.

The formations of the 3 teams are important for SAA to motivate, monitor, and manage the athletes’ and coaches’ expectations throughout their athletics career. We realize that none of you would really call yourself a national team athlete unless you represent Singapore in one way or another and we want to erase this mental barrier.

A national team member should be someone who is already performing at a high level and aspires to represent his/her country in the near future. We also want the Youth & Junior athletes who are our future national athletes to be excited as well. Thus the creation of the National Youth & National Junior Teams. We feel that this will provide them with the opportunity to continue to be proud of their own success and status in their own category.

We have to create an entry point for the 3 teams and have been debating very hard how to start off on a right note. We should not make it too difficult for many to be able to get into the teams and at the same time it should not be too easy such that too many make the teams and thus dilute the prestige and honour of being in the teams. We have been consistent in using IAAF scoring points in all our rankings and selection in 2011 and we believe it’s the best way to be transparent and fair. It also provides everyone a convenient way to track their own progress and selection and would find it easier to accept the final decision.

Because points vary from event to event and in some events they are really very low, it was very difficult to fix a common point. Thus, it was decided that using the 700+ points for Youth category and 800+ points for Junior category would be a good starting point. This level of points would ensure the competitive edge at the respective levels. They then can aim to achieve the 900+ points when they reach the SEA Games Level. For Asian games level, athletes will need to meet the 1000+ points zone. For any competitions higher than Asian games level, it will be around 1100+ points and above. Therefore, the proposed entry criteria points are:

• National Team – 5% Off SEA Games 2011 Bronze Medal Mark of their own event
• National Junior Team = Average of 5 % Off Asian Junior 2010 6th Placing Mark (Boys – 820, Girls – 800)
  (The points obtained from taking 5% off the qualifying criteria of each event were then averaged and rounded off)
• National Youth Team = Average of 5% Off Sea Youth 2011 Bronze Medal Mark (Boys – 750, Girls – 730)
  (The points obtained from taking 5% off the qualifying criteria of each event were then averaged and rounded off)

Note: There will be no selection for 100m, 200m and 400m based on the entry points as we feel that this group of athletes needs to form the relay squad and they should have a different set of entry points to form the relay training squads. The timing was fixed base on the 2011 Sea Games Men’s relay squad selection criteria, which proved to be a good strategy where Coaches from all sprint events were invited to a discussion. It was decided that each relay group should have 6 – 10 athletes training together but ultimately only 6 members for each relay team will be selected for relay competitions and from there we can decide on runners for the individual races.

All athletes who have made the mark from their 2011 results are provisionally selected but all need to meet their respective marks again during 2012 competitions that are sanctioned and recognized by SAA. Once athletes are confirmed in the squad, they will be offered an agreement and with it the privileges and benefits of being in the national team, national junior team and national youth team. We are now finalizing the privileges and benefits. The basics would include team uniform, overseas competition, training camp, priority of using SAA facility and equipment. We are working on it.

Those athletes who have been selected will be informed by SAA soon. If you think we have missed out your names, please do keep us informed.

Thanks and all the best.

C Kunalan
Vice President (Training & Selection)