(Athletes in photo: Will Tan Chong Leng, Gabriel Gan Zi Jie, Alan Zhang Zhengwei - MAG Senior, Terry Tay Wei An, Aizat Bin Mhd Jufrie, Timothy Tay Kai Cheng, Clarence Tan Meng Ping - MAG Junior)

A couple of months ago we called out to the gymnastics community to find out more about the 1st National Championships ever held in Singapore. We had some great responses. The following fills in some of those blanks in the style of an oral history.

From Begh Chen:

"In 2006, then Singapore Sports Council (Jin Teik was CEO and Wayde Clews was Chief of High Performance) engaged Ju Ping to perform a Technical Director role for Singapore Gymnastics. I was one of the executives in the High Performance Management Development department so the gymnastics portfolio was transferred to me and my work with Ju Ping and Singapore Gymnastics thus began. Revamping the National Competition Framework was but one piece in the big overall plan to unify all the entities involved in gymnastics (MOE/ CCAB + SG + SSC) and redirect the development of gymnastics towards a common goal. 

Back then the annual inter-school competition was in April each year. So we planned the rest of the competitions around that.

• National Championships in July for citizens only. This would keep gymnasts training through the June holidays
• Singapore Open in September for citizens, residents, and overseas clubs
• We also instituted an International Junior Cup in December. Unfortunately, this competition never took off. Ju Ping said it was meant to be much like the International Junior competition Canberra used to host. A much sought after opportunity by coaches around the world for their Junior elite gymnasts."

From information provided by Willie Goh:

The National Championships in 2009 was held at Bishan Sports Hall and formed a critical part of the preparation for the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics. In particular it enabled Singapore to prepare for:

• International (FIG) Field of Play (FoP) standard requirements
• Training and development of Technical Official Managers
• Development of a strong culture of event management
• Development of a pool of volunteers capable of greatly expanding the capacity of Singapore Gymnastics

From the documentation attached below:

A total of 168 athletes participated in the Championships, with 28 from MAG, 88 from WAG, and 52 from RG. As you can see from the photo above, Terry Tay competed in this competition, and is still competing at National Championships in the 2021! In WAG, current NTC coach and 2012 Olympian Lim Heem Wei competed in the FIG Senior competition, with Tokyo Olympian Tan Sze En competiting in Stage 2! The RG FIG Junior competition All Around was won by Cheryl Anne Ng Shi Fang.

A number of documents are attached including:

• National Championships Programme
• National Championships Post-Competition Report
• National Championships Competition Regulations (this incudes reculations for a '1st Singapore International Junior Cup' scheduled December 2019
• Certificate of Participation for the event
• A photo of 7 MAG competitors from FIG Senior (3) and Junior (4) competitions, as well as 4 officials (we would love to know the names!)

Thanks to Willie Goh, Gabriel Gan, Sng Puay Liang and Begh Chen for providing their memories and digging around for other documentation.