SAA amends programme for 75th Singapore Open due to haze

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Filed under Announcements, Photos, Singapore Open Track & Field Championships, Track & Field

The Singapore Open T&F C’ships technical meeting was held earlier on 21st June at S’pore Sports School boarding conference room.

Due to the haze, Singapore Athletic Association decided to shorten the programme for this weekend’s 75th edition of Singapore’s flagship track and field competition at Choa Chu Kang Stadium

[Singapore, 21 June 2013] – The Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) have announced today that the 75th edition of the Singapore Open Track and Field Championships 2013 to be held at Choa Chu Kang Stadium this weekend (22-23 June) will continue as planned, albeit with a shortened programme.

The SAA held a technical committee meeting earlier this afternoon at their office located at the Singapore Sports School together with the coaches and officials of the overseas contingents that have already arrived in Singapore.

After a lengthy discussion, the organising and officials unanimously agreed that the meet should proceed if the PSI reading falls within the healthy reading range. The shortened programme will not feature the long distance events over 1500m.

SAA General Manager, James Wong said, “Following the technical meeting with the coaches and officials, we were all in agreement that we want to proceed with the meet if the PSI falls within the healthy range, especially in the Diamond Jubilee year. It was decided that the programme would be amended, removing the long distance events. We will continue to monitor the PSI readings closely throughout the evening and tomorrow morning and adapt the programme for the 75th Singapore Open accordingly”

The two-day event will showcase some of Singapore’s finest athletes doing battle with some of the region’s best track and field exponents from 13 other countries, which includes the team from Japan. The team will look to continue their dominance from last year’s Open, where the team won 32 medals, including 14 golds. This year’s Japanese contingent will be the largest with some 35 athletes competing across 38 events. Thailand the second largest visiting team with 25 athletes will challenge Japan for the top honour.

Veteran discus thrower James Wong will open proceedings, where he will be looking to better his season best throw of 50.03m and qualify for December’s SEA Games in Myanmar. Besides Wong, the women’s 4x400m relay team, featuring the likes of Dipna Lim Prasad and Shanti Pereira, will also be aiming to meet the qualification standard for the SEA Games of 3:45.06s.

Shanti said, “Our main aim this weekend is to qualify for the SEA Games. We are the same team who competed in Taiwan, so we have been training intensively and are quietly confident for Saturday.”

The action won’t just be limited to the track; intense rivalries will be found in the field events, such as the Men’s Pole Vault, where current national record holder Chan Sheng Yao will look to take top honours in the 18-strong field for the event. Even Du XianHui, Singapore former two-time SEA Games Gold medal has come out of retirement to throw her first competition here in 6 years and together with other Team Singapore athletes she is eager to meet the Sea Games qualifying mark for the SEA Games in Myanmar.

Ahead of December’s SEA Games, South-east Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam will be looking to have a successful event, whilst Team Singapore will be aiming to continue on to build on the successes from the recent Taipei Open and SEA Youth Championships.

“The Singapore Open is now into it’s 75th year and has a great tradition of producing exciting Track & Field action, as some of the best athletes in the region come together to compete for top honours, I sincerely hope the weather will continue to improve so that the 75th Singapore Open can proceed” said Singapore Athletic Association (SAA) President Tang Weng Fei.

“Singapore has some really promising young athletes coming through in recent years and events like the flagship Singapore Open is kind of event for these athletes to showcase their talents against their regional counterparts.”