Sports Day

The sky cleared after an early afternoon shower. Students came to Bedok Stadium for Sports Day. Teachers and invited parents came. Parents can bear witness to their child’s effort in attaining sporting excellence.
Sebastian, the Sports Day PSG IC had earlier contacted parents who wanted to participate in the 4x100m. The names came from returned forms and more came through the class rep system. While the day wore on and more parents came, Sebastian invited parents to participate. Parents sporting accepted the challenge. PSG Parents formed 3 teams to race with teachers and alumni. During the interval, the band put up a marvelous display. This was a glimpse of the preparation for the coming band competition. After the interval, you can see in the photographs that the PSG teams were serious. They took time out to do some stretching before the race.
While waiting to be ready at the starting line in the PSG race, the first staccato stanza from my TK literature poem (33 years ago) flashed through.
Breathless….
”Heart aches,
lungs pant.
The thin air,
sorry scant”

Bang! off we go. Children were cheering. In a jiffy, the race has ended. The fastest PSG team came in third. The adult race was the last event for the day.
The intense effort during the few seconds made us

appreciate the nature of competitive racing. This will be an added topic for dinner talk with my children. Besides having more common ground and appreciation for my children, the Sports day did pull parents together and new acquaintances were made. TK also offered parents the opportunity to feel young again… through racing. Looking forward to next year’s Sports Day.