Diego Armando Maradona - Footballing Icon

While watching the World Cup first round qualifying match between Argentina and South Korea,the cameras panned to the animated face of a small Santa Claus type of man, the coach or manager of Argentina, Diego Maradona. Long reviled and mocked since his heydays of the 1980s when he single handedly dominated the midfield of many games against England, Belgium and Germany, he was a true genius with a divine left foot.

His claim to notoriety was when he scored a goal with his hand / head against England in 1986, and then claimed it was the 'hand of God' who helped him score. He was no doubt a wily and cunning footballer, but at the same time, a brilliant playmaker with out of this world skills. The second goal against England in that same match, was and still is touted as the best individual goal of any World Cup. He took a pass from a teammate, dribbled and waltzed pass 3 defenders before rifling the ball into the next past Pater Shilton, the then best goalkeeper in the world. That goal and another similar goal against Belgium was to elevate his status to the same league as Pele and Ferenc Puskas, the great Hungarian striker of the 50s.

The last 10 -15 years have been a roller coaster ride for him, he was doing drugs, had a cocaine addiction and had a major heart bypass and was behaving very erratically, after his divorce. He fathered a child outside of his marriage and also had very outspoken views on politics in his country. He is, however,revered in his country as well as in many parts of the world.

In November 2008 he was offered the job as manager/ coach of Argentina and the results under him were very sketchy to say the least. He experimented with 105 possible players during the Copa America and were on the verge of not qualifying for the World Cup. He himself, was subjected to a vote of confidence to continue as coach and managed to stay on by the skin of his teeth.

The match in my opinion, was a showcase of Argentinian talent, although I am not a football expert, but their midfield is probably the best in the world at the moment, with Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez and Maxi Rodriguez are practically unstoppable when they are in their element. Messi is definitely THE star of this tournament, creating practically all of Argentina's 5 goals from 2 games. The weak link is their defence where Gabriel Heinze, and particularly centre-half, Martin Demichellis quite suspect in speed and fitness. Demichellis in particular looked very 'blur' when he was totally blindsided by the onsrushing Lee Chung Yong to steal the ball and chip it pass the hapless goalie, Sergio Romero.

Maradona, standing, shouting and juggling the out of field balls by the touchline, is an enigma. He is full of passion and love for the game and especially for his players giving everyone a hug and a kiss during the half-time and fulltime whistle. This passion, together with his brilliant footballing brain, is one of the reasons why Argentina are so full of life and a real joy to watch.

Maradona, it seems, is having the last laugh of all. He might be laughing all the way to the final game of this 2010 World Cup. Count on it.

World Cup 2010 - Uniting the World in Sport

June 11th was the start of the 19th FIFA World held for the first time in the African continent with 32 countries from Asia, Australasia, Europe, and the Americas competing for the coveted Jules Rimes trophy. Singapore had high hopes with the Goal 2010 set in 1999 but till today, with the foreign talent scheme well and firmly entrenched, Singapore are still nowhere near the International standard, only being 'kampong champions' of South East Asia in 2007, 2005 and 1998.

The point I would like to make is that a simple game of football equalises and fascinates the entire world whereby huge countries like China and India with a combined population of 3 billion (almost half the world's polulation) do not have a team in the World Cup, whereas much smaller countries like South Korea (70 million),Australia (20 million) and Denmark (6 million) can qualify for it.

Its a great leveller for the major economic superpowers like the US have to face much smaller countries like UK, Ghana and Slovenia at the same level and have to rely on tactics, skills and teamwork to win. This is indeed one major viewing sporting event whereby the USA, China, Australia or Russia are NOT the favourites to win.

Youth Challenge Board Appreciation Night 11th June 2010

Some board members past and present

11th June was the Youth Challenge Board Appreciation Night and it was held to thank the Board's members past and present who were helming the charity from 2007 till the current time. The President, Looi Teck Kheong and General Secretary, Michael Lim were the key members who took over from the previous board and steered the charity through some challenging times in the past 4 years. Though I was invited and accepted to the board only for 9 months, I am motivated to help serve in other charities in the coming future as my part of giving back to society.


Basilicco at Regent Hotel

The setting for the dinner was at the impressive Basilicco restaurant, on the 2nd floor and several past board members like Dr. Colin Tan and Clement Chua were also present. The spirit of the dinner was very warm and we had some nice reminisces about what each of us saw as our contributions to the charity. While it is a recognizable name, we as the board felt that the ultimate objective of the charity had been served and there are many overlapping VWOs and NGOs currently serving the same niches of the Youth Challenge. It is only befitting that the people who have sacriciced their time and energy to serving this charity be recognised and appreaciated.

Focus on what's important, work on what's urgent

In life, many people get caught up with the urgent and pressing issues which are present on a day-to-day basis. Paying bills,coming to work on time, ensuring the children are studying for their year end exams, making sure the job/quotation is finished on time and customer signs the delivery order, accepts the invoice and a thousand and one other things.

I have been taking stock these past few days as it is the financial year end and many things are requiring my attention and action. However, I am very mindful of the big picture as I approach the 50th birthday in 2 years time. Many people have 'no choice' but to work for a living, but the key questions to ask yourself :

a) are you impacting anyone positively with your life ?
b) are you achieving your life goals and as a result, happy achieving it ?
c) apart from work and family, do you have time for yourself to pursue your own
interests if any ?
d) are you doing anything to enrich your emotional and spiritual side ?
e) are you financially independent, and have or are working on regular revenue
streams to flow in your later years ?

You may have noticed I have only listed the last point about Money. However, money helps people to live a decent and comfortable life, but 'the love of money is the root of all evil', in my opinion, so one must not view monetary issues and pursuits as the be all and end of of everything. There must be more to life than just earning your first million and then the next million and so on.

Rather, one must like and be able to live within one's own means and earnings and find activities to enjoy when he / she has the good health and time to do it.
That is what life boils down to,a good balance between work, family, personal activities, community and religious giving back.

Many people are aware of it, but few actually objectivise it and even lesser go and do it. Stop and think deeply about your own life. Take a hard look and see whether you are happy with YOUR LIFE. If you are, then fine, if not, then assess the areas where you can grow and improve on and then go and do it with a fixed time to getting it done.

World Cup 2010 Official Theme Song

Jane Peng's 7 Day Run in Sahara - 250 km

Jane at the start of the 25 K / 50 K combined Run on 22nd May 2010

Jane Peng is a young friend of mine from our Karate class at Tanglin CC. A Cornell University (New York) Alumni in Hotel Management, she has recently returned to Singapore to work with Pan Pacific Hotels as a business analyst. Her study experience has taken her from China (home country) to Singapore (secondary and pre-university at Raffles Girls and Hwa Chong JC) to England (Oxford) and USA (Cornell University).

Most interesting is her "joie de vrie" (passion for life), whereby she has undertaken a 1,000 km bicycle ride along the Nile River in 2006 with Uni friends and also a photographic trip to the southernmost tip of the Earth, the Antartica in 2009 via Argentina. As a photographer,she has been selected as a finalist for the International Photographic competition organised by National Geographic in Australia last year. This year she trained and completed for her Shitoryu Karate Black Belt Shodan (Dan 1) from our Karate dojo (school) And (get this), she is only 24 YEARS OLD.

Recently she had expressed interest in running marathons and ultramarathons and I have been training with her in the past 3 -4 months in preparation for the Passion Card combined 50km duo run which took place on May 22nd May 2010.The last few weekends before the race were running up to 20 km and moderating our run strides,pacing and taking in electrolytes, power gels and Gatorade drinks. The running routes were mainly at Macritchie Reervoir (many), Nassim Road (once) and finally the East Coast Park (many times).

One thing I was impressed was by her goal setting, mental toughness and 'never say die' attitude, something which I wish my own children could adopt as a life focus.

The run itself on 22nd May was quite uninspiring, and she finished with a time of 2 hours 49 mins compared with my slower time of 3 hours 1 minute. However,she had then signed on for the next week 29th May for the Sundown Ultramarathon for
84 km. Yes 84 km without any serious training !She completed that in 12 hours 35 minutes or so and I am very impressed by her determination to finish this without any major physical damage to her system.

On her blogpost, see http://desertrace.weebly.com, she highlighted the usage of tempo (long,slow) runs and mental preparation of going through the route in her mind. Also, she mentioned correctly that there were cases of endurance athletes who trained less and visualised more, and achieved their run goals without ever running the full distance. A 25% training distance, with 75% mental visualisation of completion is highlighted.

In October, she will be attempting a 250 km 7 day footrun (read as 42km for 7 days or 7 marathon over 7 days) in the Sahara desert, with 40 - 50 deg weather and runing on SAND. Her blog (at the top left corner of mine) covers the details of her endeavour as well as what she is doing to prepare for it. It will be a fantastic achievement for her to conquer it as it shows that a person who dares to dream big will ultimately achieve it, no matter what. She has gotten in-principle funding (majority) of her US$ 9,000 run from her employer Pan Pacific Hotel and with the run itself she hopes to raise funds of US$ 40,000 for the World Vision Microfinance scheme,called Vision Fund to help small businesses in the 3rd world to operate.I am sure that she will achieve this objective which is a huge undertaking but she is up to the task I am sure.

I am very inspired to attempt this soon (next year ??). But in concluding this post to a very amazing lady,I have this to say "GO JANE GO !!"

June 6th 1944 - we should never forget how the world owes them so much

The landings at Normandy France, with 4 beachheads, Gold, Juno, Omaha, Utah

June 6th 1944, 66 years to the day. This was the day the Allied Forces comprising US,UK. French, Belgian, Dutch and many other battalions hit back at the Germans in a 1 million man assault on the European continent. A seminal book, by Cornelius Ryan called the The longest Day has been made into a successful movie some 30+ years ago. It is a classic movies starring then movie greats such as John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, Sophia Loren and many other stars with a cast of thousands. I watched it recently to commemorate the D-Day landings as this was the turning point of the
second world war as seen by many historians.


The real heroes of the war, dead on the beach.

The pictures are real and show the true meaning of war, in black and white with no glamour at all. The message is poignant, in that politicians with their vitriolic arguments and grand ambitions like Hitler and Hirohito, the final outcome is always death and wanton destruction of mankind. Additionally many millions are scarred emotionally and physically by the ravages of war. Yet wars are still staged by various countries to exercise and exhibit their dominance and influence
over other countries for economic and industrial gain.


Landing Craft unloading the marines onto Omaha Beach - nicknames 'Bloody Omaha'

The foot soldiers at Normandy had to carry out their orders and kill or be killed. Their sacrifice and unrelenting focus on winning back the territories taken over by the German 60 odd years and finally overcoming the German conquerers has left the world a very different place than had the Germans won the war. The real heroes are not the Generals and Politicians who motivated all the people to fight to the last, it was the ordinary soldiers who gave their lives to ensure that the world is what it is today.


A Marine swimming to shore in full battle order

This is a salute to the unsung soldiers who died and veterans who the world owes a major debt of gratitude to. You are the fallen heroes whom we should never forget.