SINGAPORE - More than 680,000 - among them thousands of seniors and employees from corporations - took part in GetActive! Singapore in the lead-up to National Day.
The 12-day initiative, now into its second year as a way of celebrating sports and active lifestyles, culminated in an outdoor walk around the Tanjong Rhu area that ended at the Singapore Sports Hub. Some 4,800, mostly students from the Victoria-Cedar Alliance, took part on Tuesday morning.
The finale event was held in conjunction with the Sport Hall of Fame induction, where the thousands witnessed the induction of Olympic champion Joseph Schooling and Paralympic medallists Laurentia Tan and Theresa Goh.
Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, who was guest of honour, said she was heartened to see this year's initiative expanded and taken up by many Singaporeans.
Said Ms Fu: "We've had two great weekends of activities (at GetActive! Singapore)... with 3,000 seniors for the first time and 3,000 employees representing corporations.
"It's a new way of extending our outreach, it's been a very busy week getting poeple outdoors and doing something new. We hope that they will continue to adopt a healthy lifestyle."
Over the past two weekends, Sports Festivals were held across nine locations, attracting over 278,000 people. The majority of these events were ground-up initiatives - many of which had a national day theme, such as National Service-inspired obstacle courses, as well as collectively bench pressing 52,000kg in celebration of the nation's 52nd birthday.
The sport competitions also attracted companies, with about 4,000 registrants coming from the National Corporate Games.
SportSingapore chief executive officer Lim Teck Yin said: "We believe that sport is not just for fitness and health, but also a way to build team spirit and bring staff across business units that do not necessarily work together in their day jobs. There will be more opportunities in the years ahead for all of corporate Singapore to get on board, so watch this space."
