Officials lament lost gold-medal chance

IRATE sports officials pointed out yesterday that Schools National B girls' shot put champion Lim Wei Ying would have won a gold medal at the Asian Youth Games - if she had been selected.

The Raffles Girls' School student's winning mark of 10.06m set in April was vastly better than the 8.77m that Iran's Nazanin Golahmadi threw to win the AYG gold on Wednesday. Qatar's Omar Ba Fatima (8.21m) won the silver by virtue of being the only other competitor fielded on Wednesday.

Said Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Community Development, Youth and Sports) Teo Ser Luck: 'I felt it was a waste when I saw there were fewer than three athletes for some events. Our distance was competitive enough to fight for a gold, so it is something we should look into.'

The Singapore Athletic Association could not be reached for comment yesterday, but AYG rules stipulate that each country can select only a maximum of 12 athletes (six boys and six girls) for the athletics competition.

Win over Uzbeks gives Republic hope

SINGAPORE'S boys' basketball team crushed Uzbekistan 34-9 in their Fiba 33 Group D match yesterday at Anglican High School. They must beat India today to enter the quarter-finals.

The girls' team are all but out of the running after their second loss, this time to India 25-29.

S'pore girls sent packing by Indonesia

SINGAPORE'S girls are out of the beach volleyball competition, after losing 11-21, 11-21 to Indonesia at Sentosa's Siloso Beach yesterday.

The boys' team beat Saudi Arabia 21-18, 15-21, 15-12 and will meet Oman in an elimination round today.