Current, former national athletes to lead opening ceremony torch relay
SINGAPORE — Sporting legends K Jayamani (athletics), shuttler Wong Shoon Keat, swimmer Ang Peng Siong and up-and-coming sprinter Shanti Pereira are set to accompany the SEA Games torch as it makes its way from the Kallang Basin into the crowd of 40,000 spectators gathered for the June 5 opening ceremony at the National Stadium.
Undoubtedly the highlight of the curtain-raiser, the torch relay is expected to feature over 10 current and ex-national athletes, among them a few pairs of inter-generational athletes including a coach and his/her athlete, families, and sports mentors.
While the identity of the person who will light the cauldron remains a secret, the Singapore South-east Asian Games organising committee (SINGSOC) marked the 30-day countdown to the regional event yesterday (May 6) by unveiling the cauldron that will symbolise the start of the Games’ action here next month.
Designed by local firm DP Architects, the 19.2m-tall, 8m wide stainless steel art structure — which boasts a burner that can project a flame of up to 4m high — also features an LED digital media display displaying information such as the time, weather and live scores during the Games.
In an unusual move, the cauldron will be located at the Sports Hub’s Waterfront Plaza instead of within the National Stadium.
Mr Seah Chee Huang, project director of DP Architects, told TODAY that safety considerations arising from the height of the cauldron was one of the reasons for choosing the waterfront. “When we consider the intensity and temperature of the flame, and all factors such as safety ... It would be best for it to be outside the stadium,” he said.
“If we have it inside, the (cauldron’s) structure cannot be too tall, and that will not be suitable to mark the start of the opening ceremony on a high.
“There was a lot feedback, and in the light of the issues that we faced, we decided on this location.”
Added Colonel Lawrence Lim, SINGSOC’s chairman of Opening and Closing Ceremonies (OCC): “We did extensive studies to put the cauldron in the stadium, but we felt that bringing the cauldron out to waterfront would make it more iconic and more accessible to the public.
“One of the things we tried to do was to make people come up close and personal to it, see it, touch it and connect with it.”
A series of community activities will be held this month to rally Singaporeans behind Team Singapore. This will culminate in the Torch Parade on June 4 where the flame will be lit and paraded around Marina Bay before making its final journey to the cauldron a day later.
The opening ceremony finale will see the group of torchbearers running into the stadium with the Games torch before lighting the cauldron, setting off a dazzling fireworks display over the Kallang Basin. The action will be shown “live” on the stadium’s LED screens.
“The torchbearers have been selected from a variety of sports to symbolise how sports have grown in both breadth and depth in Singapore,” said SINGSOC chief of community and corporate outreach, Mr Toh Boon Yi.
“The idea of inter-generational is not just in terms of age, but to convey how sport in Singapore was passed down from one generation to another.”
While SINGSOC did not disclose the identities of the torchbearers, TODAY has learnt that national sprinter Pereira — who will compete in the women’s 100m, 200m, 4x100m and 4x400m relays — 1983 Games gold medallists K Jayamani (women’s marathon) and Wong (men’s singles badminton) and Ang — who won the men’s 50m gold in 1993 — will be part of the torch relay.
Jayamani is looking forward to a return to the national stadium. “I am very excited about it, and cannot wait for the first rehearsal. It has been a long time since I last ran in front of a home crowd, and I get to relive it again in some way.”
CORRECTION: In our story “Current, former athletes to lead opening ceremony torch relay” (May 7), we named SINGSOC’s Chairman of Opening and Closing Ceremonies as Colonel Lawrence Wong. This is incorrect. The chairman is Colonel Lawrence Lim. We apologise for the error.
