Badminton Fever Part 2

25 APR 2009: It was a hot sweltering afternoon and as I drove to the tournament grounds in PJ, I can't help but wonder to myself if the trip was even worth it. My text message to LP on whether it was already too late to watch any of the games went unanswered and I thought probably the answer was not favourable, thus she didn't bother to answer. You see, the games started at 9am but I could only get off my other full-time job only at around 2pm. (Eh, eh, What were you thinking? I was refering to my weekend housewife job!) Ah well, even if there weren't any games left, I could always go for the MPH or Diethlam Sale ...

And so I went, and I have to say, I was really surprised to see most of the teams already entered finals or semis. As I walked into the stuffy hall of heat and sweat, all of them were already complaining about back aches, arm injuries, muscle pull, leg strains ... all kinds of everything, which makes it even harder to believe that so many of them have qualified (I actually asked a few people, a few times, to confirm that they really qualified... haha).

At that time, against all the odds, the men of IT have already qualified for both men's singles finals and men's doubles finals. Sean was already in a game fighting for 3rd placing in men's singles which he eventually won without much stress. There were 2 women doubles team from IT and one of them have already qualified for the finals (hurray!celebrations guaranteed!) and the other women doubles team was already halfway in the semi finals game (so "kancheong" aka. exciting). It was a really close game as we could see the girls fighting right to the end of the rubber set. Despite this little setback, the girls still made us really proud for bagging the 2nd and 3rd placing. Go gurlllls!!!

The mix doubles semi finals was pretty fun to watch with Puah saying that his arms were dropping off and Patrick and LP joking around in the courts during the game. There was one part where Pat asked LP if she hated him so much that she was giving the opportunity for the opponent to smash the shuttle at him. It was probably part of their strategy as the opponent started to eavesdrop onto their conversation and laughed and began losing points. On the other court, Puah jokingly called out to Sam for a helping hand and Sam passed him a wristband (or was it a hairband!?) to "prevent Puah's arms from falling off"!



Then the real action began. Sam played a tough opponent to grab the Men's Singles Champion title with rubber set while Sam and Patrick took home the Men's Double Champion. (The guys had played a total of 16 and 14 sets each on the same day! Amazing!). Actually, it was pretty intimidating when I first saw the 2 tall and lean young opponents; both of whom had that "National Badminton Player-look". It was like watching Malaysia vs Indonesia doubles finals. Little did I think that our IT guys stood a chance against those young, mean looking opponents but yet again, they surprised me pleasantly by giving these young opponents a run for their money! (watch the video but kids, dont try this at home!)

At the end of the day, IT bagged 4 out of 11 titles offered (3 positions for men's singles, 2 each for women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mix doubles) .... A very impressive figure, wouldn't you say, considering the stereotyping of IT techies/geeks to be weak in sports.

I have to put my hats down for our IT Badminton team. They can really have fun during training and yet when it comes to business (tournament), they really can beat the living daylights out of their opponents. In my humble opinion, if every department adapts this kind of culture into their daily work (have fun at work but yet getting the job done!), I am sure we can build a tight, fun, highly motivated and successful team.