By: Noora Ibrahim Zahir
Student Council and University Life joined together to organize the annual Sports Carnival giving students the opportunity to ‘get active’ and enjoy themselves before the exam stress sets in. Hundreds of students from all over campus came together to engage in friendly competition and most importantly have tons of fun! The Sports Carnival had various activities ranging from sport events such as footsal, volleyball and basketball to fun-filled tele-matches organized by University Life.
Students were allowed to create their own groups of twelve members and all the members were distributed among various competitions. The winning team of each individual event received a certain amount of points, which were tallied at the end of the carnival to choose the overall best teams of the Sports Carnival.
The event started off on the Friday, the 15th of May at 7.00 pm with the footsal tournament. After many exciting matches, City Satans became the champions with Falconettes and Pandu United trailing behind with second and third place.
The rest of the carnival was continued early morning on the following Saturday. The lovely weather matched the good spirits of the contestants. The first event was the relay, where the strong willed participants ran all the way from Lakeside to the Pick-up point and back. Four members from each group took up the challenge and Poom Poom’s members won well deserved 30 points for finishing the race in the fastest amount of time. City Satans followed closely behind and won second place while Falconettes came third. While the relay races were going on, the basketball competition had started at the Lakeside basketball court. Here, team Fantastic excelled and took away first price and Poom Poom and Redemption came second and third respectively. Along with the end of the basketball matches, the Sports Carnival also came to a close for the week after many exciting and enjoyable events.
On Friday the 22nd of May, the carnival began again after a week’s intermission with the volleyball tournament. Fantastic took away first place again with their mind blowing performance. At the same time, Falconettes and How Chee Seng & Friends also collected valuable points as second and third place winners.
The final and the most anticipated day of the Sports Carnival was on Saturday, the 23rd of May; time for the tele-matches organized by University Life as part of their Get Active campaign for the year. Despite the original plan to include three activities in the tele-matches, a technical problem with the tug-of-war resulted in getting the event cancelled. However, the remaining two competitions were the highlights of the carnival with an abundance of fun for both spectators and the competitors. City Satans got the third highest number of points for the telematches while Poom Poom was second best. The first place went to Fantastic who once again ensured that they measured up to their name.
Once the activities were finished and the refreshments provided by University Life were enjoyed, it was time for the most awaited event of the day; the prize awarding ceremony. The Pro-Vice Chancellor of Curtin Sarawak, Dr. John Evans honored the event by giving the closing speech and handing out the prizes and medals to the happy winners. Not surprisingly, the ecstatic members of team Fantastic took home the gold. Team Poom Poom won the silver medals with the second highest number of overall points and City Satans were the second runner-up winning the bronze medals. Win or lose, the Sports Carnival 2009 was enjoyable for everyone who was there. It was well worth the tans and sunburns!
