To a certain extent, I had also expected Singapore to win, after the final two candidate cities were announced.

It is out of our confidence in Singapore, and our belief that 'if we want to do it, we will make it' that made it so 'expected'.

However, I also feel that it is the more than 40 years of hard work by generations of Singaporeans making Singapore an efficient country with a good standard of living that made the International Olympic Committee believe that we can deliver a good Youth Olympic Games.

Whether our Government or the Olympic Committee had known the result beforehand is not important. It could also be that the countdown event at the Padang was organised because we were 'secretly confident' of winning the bid.

Regardless of whether the results were 'expected' or not, Singapore has now won the bid. We should now 'expect' Singapore to deliver a good Youth Olympic Games in 2010 and we should work together to fulfil this expectation.

Audrey Chia Yan Qi (Miss)