sunig 2024

Singapore University Games (SUniG) Aquathlon

it is at these once-a-year, massive inter-university school events that i am once again filled with so much love for this sport. this people, this cca.

i remember my race mind and my race body; the aftertaste still reeking on my lips days after like the Big Dipper ice cream you can never forget. even as every cell screamed inside of me, my mind remained calm, steady, steely: you can do it. slow down here. speed up here. pace behind this girl. let's overtake her. last 200, all out ALL OUT!!

i give this sport my all. and the sport gives me back what it can too. for just a few moments -- which is all i need -- the sport releases me from the daily stresses of the outside world of school and work. i forget they ever existed. for just those few moments, my only goal is to simply complete the race. complete the training set. and when we are done with that we all congratulate and encourage each other like we've done something big. we indulge ourselves in good hawker food. life is simple like that.

and now the exhilaration of racing pumps through my veins again. the deafening cheers that enveloped me the moment i hauled myself out of the pool. right down to the very last 200m sprint towards the finishing line. i don't even know who cheered for me, i was blind and cannot see. but i hear them all, and they surge through my blood and bones. the doctors will find incomprehensible that my bones are not powered by calcium but by sheer scream energy, by the muscles that are jolted awake by the same. i make that one last stride.

truly i understand now when people say that sport unites. we come from very different backgrounds and hold very different philosophies in life. but we share a common love of fun and addiction to pain. the pride we share. the encouragement we easily shower on others. emblematic of the true sporting spirit and shaping us to be the best persons we can be.