i haven't been blogging. darn. and i'm already forgetting about all the things i've done in this past week :( boooo. thank God for the trusty nice scheduler which i flip at least 5 times a day. wooots.
anyway, i've finished 4 days of yog duties. halfway through, cos i've got another 4 more days to go. before i forget about the most memorable event that happened so far, i better blog about it first!
today the YOV (youth olympic village) held their very first Chat with Champions, one of the 7 CEP (cultural and educational programs) for Singapore 2010. the athlete role models (ARM) for today were Sergey Bubka (Ukraine) and Yelena Isinbayeva (Russia), both pole vaulters and world record holders. Chat with Champions is actually a one-hour dialogue held in a lecture theatre whereby youth athletes get to know more about these ARMs as well as how they live as professional athletes. after a brief introduction, athletes get to ask them various questions about anything regarding their sport, their lifestyle, and how they cope with competitions and balance between education and sport.
anyway, i'm really, really glad to be able to join this dialogue session today, albeit by chance :) the perks of being a media communication assistant is that you get to see these big shots and awesome respectable people for a proper reason, and sometimes even get to interact with them first hand while handling the media. as for today, i merely helped take care of the media (in case they have enquiries) while the dialogue was going on, which gave me a legitimate reason to stay behind and listen to them :)
sergey bubka & yelena isinbayeva are truly inspirational and great sportsmen i tell you, and there's so much all athletes can learn from them! all they said about failures & trainings, & competitions, all the various tips they gave to athletes which regards to sports etc. proved to be so informative & helpful, and really if i had listened to all these 4 years earlier, perhaps then i would have found the strength and motivation to continue with competitive canoeing instead of choosing to be a quitter.
when they talked about how they sacrificed the life that all normal youths have, how they overcame different obstacles in their sporting life, how they coped with disappointment and defeat, how they managed to break world records time and time again, you just know how awesome and respectable they truly are. the amount of effort, time, and patience placed into their sport was immense, and you can just imagine the amount of emotional torment and struggle they had to go through while achieving these feats. moreover, with the weight of the world's expectations on their shoulders, they nevertheless managed to push their limits and literally go higher. failures and criticisms just made them more motivated to press on, and their determination in proving others wrong was so strong.
really, really, respect.
when i think of the numerous times i broke down during comps, be it because of the pressure from others' expectations of me, or because of having zero confidence in myself, i really feel like a loser. i couldn't cope with being great, and so in the end i became mediocre when i could have achieved so much more. i couldn't be myself during comps, i couldn't focus, i couldn't think, i couldn't perform.
and that i guess caused me to eventually give up on anything competitive. but now that i've heard the two talked about their very real experiences, i look back and think about how much things i could have done to overcome this problem. but i never thought of solving it, i merely avoided, because i couldn't stand the pain.
i almost cried while listening to them, because of the many regrets i have with regards to canoeing (and i was terribly bitter by the fact that i didn't hear all these 4 years earlier), and because of my disappointment in myself that i couldn't be as emotionally & psychologically strong like them. sigh.
but well, i've learnt so much, and it's time to move on. as regretful as i can be, i have to say that all these freed time was so well spent. if i were still in the sport, i would have missed out on the amazing university life i'm living and the awesome friends i've made. :) yeaps. but i'll always put what they've said in mind, because really, sometimes life is really like competing in a sport.
+ guaishou's! :D
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