YOG Empty Seats

It’s a $387 million Youth Olympic Games screw-up I tell you.

If it’s any indicator, first it was the ballooning of the budget from $122 million to its whopping $387 million.

Then came to light of the awful food catering to its volunteer.

These volunteers mainly student says they were coerced into joining, and was even reported forced to work long hours.

It escalated when 26 YOG volunteers at two separate YOG venues came down with food poisoning. It seems Maggots have been claimed to be found in it.

Schools then admitted they ‘forced’ their students to attend the YOG.

And these kids were under order not to bring water bottles of a certain brand, such as Milo or Coke as it would compete with the YOG main sponsors.

Furthermore these school kids are slapped with a $5 fine if they did not attend the games.

My old school NTU has now become a well guarded and quarantined area with checkpoints, and the students under siege and affected by the YOG i.e. giving up rooms, assignment deadlines rushed.

The Games Village wasn’t supposed to be at NTU in the first place, but because they couldn’t complete the initial YOG village near NUS in time, they had to move to NTU. Another screw-up there.

And our fearless PAP bizarrely handed out free condoms at the Games Village. Mind you they’re minors.

Not only the locals are not interested in the YOG, in sports like soccer, only six teams are in the soccer tournament, and they’re kucing-kurap (crappy) ones.

And its the local again who had to give way, literally, once again. You’ll be fined $130 if you don’t give way to YOG buses on the specially designated YOG lanes on the road.

Now Singaporeans have banded online to officially making their dislike and stand regarding the overrated YOG. It’s also a means to disseminate the real situation of the YOG, rather than the media cover-ups and propaganda on the TV and radio.

But what pisses me off is the YOG ticket fiasco. My line of work is of the local media, and to think I was shut out of the YOG media accreditation as I wasn’t deemed as important as those media people from overseas.

I would think they would need all the help they can get to promote the Games, and disseminate the news, but noooooooo … I’m totally unworthy.

With that I had to buy the YOG tickets myself using my money, to cover the events … pathetic right!

And my problem didn’t stop there. I had issues buying the ticket itself. And there has been a massive outcry in the ticket handling.

No tickets for those who needs it, and want to watch the games but unfortunately unable to purchase it for god knows reason why, while the YOG venues continues to have empty seats!

I’m not spouting lies, you just need to log on and view the videos online, and you would see those empty seats yourself.

Here’s an example gallery link to a YOG ‘sold out’ event.

All I can say this Youth Olympic Games is an epic failure.