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Half empty venues at Singapore Youth Olympic Games

As a Singaporean, I am proud that our country is hosting the first Youth Olympics Games (YOG) , hence I have been relishing for a ticket to any YOG competition to catch a piece of the action.

However, I was not able to get a ticket. I was very disappointed to read of half empty venues at our Youth Olympic Games when Singaporeans genuinely interested in the games are not able to get tickets.


As a working adult, I do not mind taking a weekday leave, even a half day leave, to catch this once-in-a-life local sporting event for Singapore and Singaporeans!


The organizers of the games should not have first allocated 80% of the tickets to the schools. Allocation of the tickets should have been carried out akin to the electronic balloting system used for the distribution of the National Day tickets to ensure such distribution is fair and the tickets go to genuinely interested audience. Once the allocation to Singaporeans nationwide is over, the remaining tickets can then be distributed to students really interested in watching the games so that we will then have an even and equitable mix of youths and Singaporeans of all different ages genuinely interested in the games at the competition venues!

I think an important lesson learnt for the organizing committee is that interest for the games does not lie in generating numbers; it lies in true passion.

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