FEB 8 marks the six-month anniversary of the Beijing Olympics' grand opening at the Bird's Nest stadium and much has changed in the past half a year.

The skies in Beijing are no longer as blue, Olympic traffic lanes bear the five-ring logos but carry no special privileges and Michael Phelps has gone from medals to marijuana.

But something remains unchanged - the Chinese people's enthusiasm and pride in the Beijing Games.

SOURCE: Peh Shing Huei

While the Olympic flame has long been extinguished, for the thousands who still head to the Bird's Nest daily, it is almost as if Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt was still galloping to gold in the stadium.

SOURCE: Peh Shing Huei

The excitement starts miles before the stadium. On Friday morning, when I took the subway towards the Olympic Green, the squeals of delight could be heard the moment visitors switched to Line 8 - the four-stop Olympic subway line.

Camera started clicking at the station because it bears the name "Olympic Sports Center" and familiar Beijing Olympic tunes like "You and Me" and "Beijing Welcomes You" serenaded passengers.

It almost feels like August 8 again, as a mother excitedly told her young son that "we are going to the Bird's Nest, we are going to the Bird's Nest!"

SOURCE: Peh Shing Huei

Touted as a symbol of rising Chinese nationalism, the Nest is an architectural marvel that is now a must-see for Beijing tourists - joining a long and illustrated list that includes the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.

Some 10,000 gamely paid 50 yuan (S$10.90) a day to enter the stadium and about a million reportedly lingered at the Olympic Green area - free of charge - during the recent Chinese New Year holidays, just to admire the stadium's impressive lattice design.

It was so crowded when I was there that the security officers blocked some visitors from approaching the ticket counter. They were allowed in only when those at the counter had purchased their tickets and moved into the stadium.

SOURCE: Peh Shing Huei

And that is when you noticed the biggest difference between now and during the Olympic Games.

While the Games had thousands of smiling, polite and eager young Chinese volunteers to usher you in when you pass the turnstiles, they have been replaced by a bunch of non-smiling and surly workers and security guards.

"Go that way," barked a guard when visitors failed to take the right entry lane.

Yes, the Olympics is well and truly over.

Read the full story in The Sunday Times here.

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Born with spina bifida, Theresa Goh started swimming at the age of five. She is one of Singapore's top athletes and was awarded Sportsgirl of the Year for two years in a row in 2002 and 2003, Sportswoman of the Year by the Singapore Disability Sports Council in 2004, and the Singapore Youth Award in 2005. Now 21, Theresa will swim her pet event, the 100m breaststroke on Friday when she could win Singapore's first Paralympics medal.

From the Paralympics Village
In Beijing

IT'S all over!

Hi everyone. Events are finally over!

The swimming team ended with a bang!

Thanks to my swim mate Pin Xiu, who won Singapore’s first gold medal in the Paralympics. This Paralympic outing has been a rather successful one and it has all been made possible by a group of fantastic people.

The swim team may be small but I think we pack a punch. I’d also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Laurentia on her 2 bronze medals. Eric, Jovin and Desiree complete this wonderful Singapore Paralympic team.

This is our best Paralympic showing so far and we are all very proud to be a part of this.

I’m now going off to sleep and I look forward to going back to Singapore.

Home sweet home.

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In Beijing

Singapore swimmer Yip Pin Xiu lowers herself from the wheelchair and into the water with swim team manager Danny Ong's help.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Watched over by swim team manager Danny Ong, Pin Xiu positions her goggles with her permanently-clenched fingers before she lowers herself from the wheelchair, into the water.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Pin Xiu flips into the water on her back once swim her team manager lets go of her wrists in the heats.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Pin Xiu propels her way to a second world record in three days in the 50m backstroke (S3). She lopped 3 seconds off her world previous world record of 1:00.80 with a new time of 57.92, fininshing first among 10 swimmers.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Singapore swim team manager Danny Ong holds swimmer Yip Pin Xiu as she gets back into her wheelchair after smashing her own world record in the 50m backstroke (S3) heats.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Singapore swim team manager Danny Ong tells Pin Xiu to look up in the stands where her parents are after she smashed her own world record. Pin Xiu, 16, lets out a wide grin and waves with her permanently-clenched fingers shortly after.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Singapore swimmer Theresa Goh looks up at the scoreboard to check out the timings of her opponents in the first of two heats for the 50m freestyle (S5) before surprising everyone but her coach by swimming her favoured breaststroke instead of the faster front crawl in her last race at these Games.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Finishing second last among 14 swimmers, almost all of whom did the front crawl, Theresa did not qualify for the finals. Coach Ang Peng Siong had asked her to swim the breaststroke to help her regain her confidence and correct her technique after she was disappointed last Friday when she narrowly missed the bronze in her pet 100m breaststroke (SB4) event. She finished in 53.67 seconds, about 1 second short from the world record of 52.62 seconds she set during the 4th ASEAN Para Games held in January this year.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

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Singapore swimmer Yip Pin Xiu, 16, who has muscular dystrophy, gets to the starting block for her 50m freestyle (S3) heats on the morning of Sept 13 with the help of swim team manager Danny Ong while her Mexican rival Patricia Valle (right) is carried and lowered into the water.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Pin Xiu starts her 50m freestyle (S3) heats on the morning of Sept 13 with the help of swim team manager Danny Ong. Pin Xiu smashed Mexican rival Patricia Valle (right)'s world record, finishing first among 14 swimmers in 57.04, a new world record and more than 4 seconds off her personal best. Her coach Ang Peng Siong said that she has been clocking faster and faster times - doing world- record times even during training.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Pin Xiu smiles when she sees the scoreboard flashing "world record" after she finished first in her 50m freestyle (S3) heats on the morning of Sept 13 as she grips the railing with her permanently-clenched hands.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

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Singapore Paralympian Theresa Goh prepares for her second swim in Beijing.

Born with spina bifida, Theresa Goh started swimming at the age of five. She is one of Singapore's top athletes and was awarded Sportsgirl of the Year for two years in a row in 2002 and 2003, Sportswoman of the Year by the Singapore Disability Sports Council in 2004, and the Singapore Youth Award in 2005. Now 21, Theresa will swim her pet event, the 100m breaststroke on Friday when she could win Singapore's first Paralympics medal.

From the Paralympics Village
In Beijing

Hi everyone, it's Theresa here. I've read the past few entries by Laurentia and Eric and I shall try to measure up. Let me try to get into the blogging spirit too!

This is my second Paralympics and so far, Beijing has been amazing.

The atmosphere at the Paralympics is something unique and one-of-a-kind. To see so many athletes with disabilities competing in so many different sports is wonderful. To see athletes with disabilities and able-bodied people here as support staff, caregivers, coaches together part of the Paralympic Games is even better.

This is my eighth day in the village but it seems like I’ve been here for weeks already. Things are going swimmingly, pardon the pun, and I just had my first race yesterday!

I’m happy with the times I got and I’m looking forward to my next few events in the coming week. To think it’s all going to be over in less than a week. Wish me luck!

Taking the plunge at the Water Cube this morning.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Theresa Goh finished second in her 200m Freestyle heat this morning with a time of 3:18:51. Out of 15 competitors, she placed fourth. Watch the finals LIVE at 7:13pm tonight on paralympicsport.tv.

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Sim Chi Yin is heartened that support for disability sports is growing.

In Beijing

"MAYBE even terrorists are not interested in the Paralympics." 

So grumbled a fellow journalist covering these Games for the world's top physically disabled athletes.

A Chinese worker changes Olympic banners to
Paralympic banners on a street light pole in Beijing.
 Photo: AP

For all buzz and security worries over the Beijing Olympics – China's big-bang coming-of-age party – there's considerably less hoo-ha about its equivalent for the disabled. The international and local journalist pack is visibly much thinner on the ground, and for days before the Paralympics opened on Saturday, even the notoriously-tight security checks around the Olympic venues seemed somewhat more relaxed. 

At a welcome ceremony for Team China at the Paralympics Village two weekends ago for instance, journalists were able to come within an arm's length of top Chinese officials – usually a no-no. 

While it is a relief that Beijing is finally less anxious about something – anything – going wrong during this Olympic season, the relative disinterest in the Paralympics has long troubled many within the disability sports fraternity and beyond. 

No matter how much China's top politicians stress "Two Olympics, equally splendid",  there is no denying that the Olympics was, as an academic put it to me, "the favourite son" while the Paralympics are "a distant cousin". 

Even the host country's largely controlled media has been noticeably less enthusiastic about these Games compared to the Olympics for which they put out reams of stories. 

A local journalist was overheard telling another that his newspaper had cut back from eight daily pages during the Olympics to one page per day for the Paralympics. 

Another Chinese scribe complained to me that her sports colleagues had "disappeared" after the Olympics, leaving her, a social issues reporter, to cover these Games. 

All that is hardly peculiar to China. Apart from the BBC, CCTV and a handful of broadcasters in a sprinkling of countries which have fielded large Paralympian delegations, these Games are not on television. And it is hardly unusual to find Paralympics news reports running in the 'social' or 'home news' sections of many a newspaper.

It is also true that the Paralympics has not been a magnet for protests as the Olympics was – when activists for a range of causes picked their moment to berate China. 

At the Paralympics so far, only a lone Chinese streaker – who kept her bra and jeans on – struck out by dashing onto the pitch during the opening ceremony on Saturday(6sept). But if she had a cause, she was not able to shout it. She was quickly wrestled to the ground and a day later pronounced "mentally unstable" by officials. 

The Singapore contingent marches out at Saturday's
Opening Ceremony with Theresa Goh as flag bearer.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

At the heart of this relative lack of interest in the Paralympics is perhaps the perception that disability sport is not 'real' sport but just a means of rehabilitation, or worse, social welfare for the handicapped. Some may also dismiss the level of competition at the Paralympics as "not as high" as that at the Olympics. Others may be averse to watching imperfect bodies stretching themselves to the limit – instead of the tanned, toned ones sported by Olympians. 

Thankfully for many in the fraternity, the Beijing Paralympics show many encouraging signs of a growing appetite for disability sport at the highest level. 

More than 6,000 journalists applied for accreditation to cover these Games, twice the number which reported on the previous Paralympics in Athens. It probably helps that many foreign newspapers, TV stations and wire agencies already have a stable of correspondents based in Beijing, ready to cover the Paralympics even if their headquarters decided against sending an army of reporters like many did for the Olympics. 

New technology is also helping. With little Paralympic action on TV around the world, the International Paralympic Committee – the mothership organisation for disability sport – is harnassing the Internet and putting live coverage of these Games on YouTube or www.paralympicsport.tv.

That may help convince many of the unconverted. One just needs to sit for a short while in the stands to watch swimmers with no arms do the Butterfly or watch a double amputee run the 100m to feel thoroughly awed by elite disability sport and the power of the human body and mind. 

Covering the Paralympics for a second time now, I am reminded of what swim coach Ang Peng Siong told me in Athens in 2004, as we flew back together with the team of eight Singaporean Paralympians who had quietly done the Republic proud. It had been, for both of us, a first-time, first-hand experience of the Paralympics.

Coach Ang Peng Siong watches Theresa's strokes
closely during a training session in Beijing.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Mr Ang, a former champion swimmer who competed in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics and was head coach at the 2000 Games, said then: 'It was a real humbling experience. The Paralympics remind us of what sports is really about - challenging the human spirit. We have a lot to learn from disabled athletes. Sometimes, we, able-bodied people, are ourselves disabled - mentally."

How right he was, I thought to myself, watching and photographing Singapore Paralympic wheelchair racer Eric Ting – who is paralysed from the chest down - go through the paces in the gym late last week. With no abdominal muscles to keep his body from jerking forward like a puppet, his coach pressed his chest against the wall while Eric pumped away at the weights machine, struggling to grip the handlebars with his stiff fingers.

Eric trains with his coach in Beijing.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

My own gym workouts will never be the same again. 

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Singapore Paralympian Eric Ting gears up for his race in Beijing.

Eric Ting, 36, is a quadraplegic and is representing Singapore in wheelchair racing in the Beijing Games which kick off this Saturday. He is Singapore's only track and field athlete and is competing in the 400 metre race. His minder told The Straits Times that his blog entry may be short but it took him great time and effort as his hands and fingers are not as long or as dexterous due to his condition.

In Beijing

IT HAS been three days since my arrival now and I have settled into the life here at the Paralympics Village. The facilities and provisions have all been fantastic. I'm also very impressed by the organisation. I have finally seen the "Bird's Nest" and the "Water Cube" after watching events at these venues on TV so many times.

Wheelchair racer Eric Ting, 36, an ex-commando
who became paraplegic after a car accident, works
out in the Paralympics Village gym 4 Sept. He will
 be Singapore's sole representative on the track
at the Beijing Paralympics, racing in the 400m
next week. ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Eric works out in the Paralympics Village gym with the
help of his coach Ann Mahakeeta. ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

With his stiff fingers, Eric takes a while to find the right
grip on the weights machines. ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

I'm still recovering from my flu and just started full training today. It's pretty frustrating not feeling 100 per cent physically but hopefully I'll feel better as the days go by. It'll be another week or so before my event.

It's my first Paralympics and I really hope I'll enjoy the whole experience.

Find out more about Singapore's Paralympics representatives and you can catch them in action next week.

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Singapore Paralympian rider Laurentia Tan arrives in Hong Kong.

Laurentia Tan,28, is an equestrian dressage rider for Team Singapore. She lives in England where she trains with her horse called Nothing To Lose, also nicknamed Harvey. She was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and profound deafness as a child.

Competing with Nothing To Lose.
Handout: Laurentia Tan

In Hong Kong

Day One: August 27th

WE arrived in Hong Kong at about 3pm and was transported in a big coach meant for 49 people, to our temporary hotel for that night. After checking in, we went straight to the stables to meet Caroline (Harvey's groom) and welcome my lovely horse.

After a bit of delay, Harvey arrived but it wasn't the arrival I'd hoped for.

As soon as he went in to his stable, he was so restless and neighing really loud calling for Youri, who had been quarantined and travelling with him. He's never like this and it was rather unnerving to watch. 

Arrangements were made to have Youri, his new friend from Ireland, to be stabled next to Harvey. Once they were together, both horses quickly settled down and seemed happy. It was nice to see the teams for Hong Kong, Great Britian and Ireland - with whom the Singapore Team are all familiar with - as we are stabled together in the same block.

I was very exhausted by the time Harvey arrived, especially with all the walking in the airport and getting to the stables. My trainer Penny suggested that we go back to the hotel first, but we'd missed the last 7pm coach back to the hotel. We finally sat down for dinner at 9pm! 

After dinner, we went to our rooms to try on our new outfits and official attire. It's so exciting and we were like three kids opening Christmas presents... and comparing how tight our trousers are! 

Day Two: August 28th

I ONLY managed to sleep for four hours, and while everyone went to the stables after breakfast, I stayed in the hotel to rest. I managed to catch up on my sleep for a bit when the news came from the stables that all was well. We then checked out of the temporary hotel to transfer to the Paralympic Village.

By the time we settled in, it was nearly 4pm and I was starting to feel exhausted again. So I opted for an early night.

No Harvey time today.

Day Three: August 29th

PENNY, my trainer, left for the stables early this morning to give Harvey a little light physiotherapy with the muscle stimulator (not with her own hands). He seemed quite tight behind the saddle. His groom Caroline walked him out around the race track and let him have a pick at some grass.

Harvey was booked-in for a ride at 4.30pm, the first since his arrival. Although he started a little stiffly in his walk, Caroline soon had him walking out really well. After a brief trot, Harvey felt a little stiff again, so we arranged for a physiotherapist to look at him at 8.00am tomorrow. Hopefully, the physio will help loosen him up.  

After the ride, Harvey was taken to the misting tent where he seemed to enjoy a cool shower and a wash down with cold water. Later, he was led around the competition arena where he behaved beautifully despite all the distractions. Harvey was so calm that another competitor asked for Harvey to give him a lead round the arena which he did like a pro.

Laurentia will be blogging for The Straits Times when the Paralympics kick off on Saturday. Her events will be on Tuesday, September 9 (Individual Championship Test) and Thursday September 11 (Individual Freestyle Test).

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Sim Chi Yin captures the first moments of Team Singapore in Beijing.

In Beijing

SINGAPORE'S Palalympics contingent arrived in Beijing yesterday - including world-record-holder swimmers Theresa Goh and Yip Pin Xiu. Both are medal hopefuls at these Games.

Pin Xiu, Theresa and coach Ang Peng Siong arrive
at Beijing's Terminal 3. ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Wheelchair racer Eric Ting delights in the
handicapped-friendly facilities in the Paralympics Village.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

The first thing Pin Xiu and Theresa do at the Village
is hang up their formal Singapore uniforms so
they don't get crumpled. ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

Theresa gets down to business and
acclimatises to the Beijing waters.
ST Photo: Sim Chi Yin

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Lee Seok Hwai discusses possible reasons for the lack of enthusiasm.

ENTRENCHED opinions, it appears, are immoveable, even in the path of the Olympic juggernaut.

People in the US, China’s current main rival, and Japan, China’s historical arch enemy, seem to be unmoved by the Beijing Olympics, according to a poll by The Straits Times. Their largely ambivalent or even negative views of China remain intact.

What can China do to improve this deep-rooted latent hostility? Perhaps the more valid question is: Should it even try?

In psychology, studies have shown that the character of a person, once it is formed in his teens, will remain stable throughout his life. It is safe to assume the same immutability of a country’s psyche – the set of beliefs and values that shape its opinions and actions.

The East-West, totalitarian-democratic, divide between China and the United States will never be bridged. On any given day, mainstream American newspapers will carry articles that are either outright critical of China, or are implicitly so. Rare is the writer who expresses sympathy for the country.

As for Japan, the roots of its Sino animosity are much more complicated, and of course, that much harder to disentangle.

The Chinese, of course, have reflected all that ill feelings back to the Japanese and the Americans. 

Much has been made of Chinese rulers supposed exploitation of such hostility, when the occasion suits them. The word for it is “nationalism”.

Which brings me to a second psychological finding: That individual passions get amplified in a group setting. So a Chinese who is, say, annoyed with Japanese textbooks that glorifies imperial Japan, is likely to get seriously incensed if he joins a group of like-minded people, who will each also go from irate to furious.

At this point, pacifists will suggest doing away with national boundaries in the interest of world peace. I suggest that they sing to the tune of John Lennon’s “Imagine”.

Read Lee Seok Kwai's feature on Olympic attitudes in The Straits Times today.

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