the canoeing scene today

was at macritchie for my morning walk when i met my former balestier colleague sng thai soon. after retirement, he has been coaching canoeing and dragon boat racing. i stayed on to watch the canoeists go through their paces.

found out from him the many changes that have taken place. they now have a national coach - a bulgarian - for canoeing. he is stationed at macritchie reservoir most of the time. this year's canoeing championships will be held at the bedok reservoir. some of the colleges have engaged the services of foreign coaches. there was one from china coaching the rjc team. was told that he is already a singapore citizen.

in those days when i was involved in canoeing, there were only two classes - the t1 and t2. today, they still carry on with having the t1 and t2, which are not raced at international level. schools have introduced the k1, k2, k3 and k4, as well as the c1 and c2. k stands for kayak and c stands for canadian kayak, where the rower takes up a squat position.

even the equipment has gone high tech. paddles which used to cost about $30 in the good old days, now cost around $480. i was told the nelo single seater kayak cost more than $4000. the four-seater nelo costs around $12 000.

the training session was halted temporarily because of lightning. a siren was sounded and all the canoeists had to return to shore. they were told that they could return to the waters only after 10.10 a.m. this was the information one of the coaches got from nea.