What is the first thing you think of when you see or hear "YOG"? Most likely it is the terribly cheesy YOG cheer. But YOG is about to start in a week, and all we know about it is, well, basically nothing! Aside from the silly YOG cheer, many people are expressing concern over the quality of the YOG events, especially the opening ceremony. Why is there so little hype about YOG? Why are the standards for the YOG so low?

To hear that the 21 youth athletes from Trinidad and Tobago are very excited to be in Singapore for the YOG, I can't help but feel very angry with the YOG organising committee for its shoddy work. And to hear that a single individual donated $60 million for this YOG, I am more than enraged at the pathetic state of YOG currently.

"Shoddy" and "pathetic" might not be strong enough words to describe the current situation. Apparently the information counter at the Olympic Village has not been manned for an extended period of time, despite athletes arriving in Singapore since a week ago. The opening ceremony rehearsals have been lacklustre so far. Not simply untidy or rough-round-the-edges, but very weak. There is only one more week before the YOG begins.

This is an extreme disrespect of the foreign athletes coming to Singapore. They arrive in Singapore full of hope and passion, and have been training hard for the past few months. Yet we will be showing them an unenthusiastic opening ceremony (the government wanted one right, so fine we'll do it), with poor service (hey I was forced to "volunteer" for this!), in a country where its citizens cannot be bothered with the YOG games. Do the organisers really have so little respect for others? And no one is demanding them to respect the Average Joe. These are the best and most talented youth athletes in the world whom we are hosting. In a country with such abundance of resources, can we only do so little for an international event? An event with the word "Olympics" in it, a word that carries hundreds of years of history?