Sawadee-cup at Medalist Asia-International 2006 Dart Tournament

Another Sawadee-cups event at Medalist Asia-International 2007 Dart Tournament, Bangkok

More than forty Singaporean darters went to Bangkok, Thailand to participate in the 2007 Medalist Asia-International Soft-Tip Dart tournament held on July 13-15. Held over a period of 3 days, it was intensive morning-till-night playing as the Singapore team met with players from all over Asia to pit their skills against each other.

As with last year's event, on the evening before the tournament started, the organizers, Medalist Asia, threw a big Players’ Appreciation Party for all the players. All players were greeted with orchid garlands and officials and players clapped all those who have come from afar to attend the event. There was also an elephant dressed in Medalist colors offering candid photo sessions. This was followed by a short fireworks show that were shot from a boat nearby along the river and with a firework sparkle sign that read “Medalist Love Darts Players”. Finally, a live band rocked and rolled to bring down the house with their own great rock music. The players were by then all ready to jump in to boogie action with the band.

All players jumped in for the pose at the party

On the first day of the tournament, all the Singapore players were seen getting an early start to warm up their arms for the day's event. Short welcome greetings were given by the Medalist officials in all the languages that were represented by all the various nationalities gathered in the hall. They include Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Japanese, Indonesian, Thai, Australian and French.

Trophies galore

Singapore players warming up

Some new features were also explained including the bounty team where a team is randomly selected to be the "bounty team". Any team beating the bounty team wins $100 on the spot and the bounty team wins $20 for every team that they beat. It was quite exciting as everyone wants to meet and beat the bounty team.

Opening ceremony

The games got underway with the 3 flights (A, B, C) starting off at different times. The top 2 teams of each flight get to take the "march to the final pit" where they were cheered and hurrahed up to the stage by everyone amidst loud exciting music. The finals were played on stage, "in the pit". In the evening, the special events Doubles Super Count-up also got started. This game was similar to the local Super Count-up except that iit is played as doubles. Although no Singapore team managed to play in the finals pit on day one, we did managed to bring home 9 trophies in all.

Day One
Flight	Players	Placing	Total Prize (US$)	Trophy
B	Felix/Oliver Lo	5th	$250	2
B	Kae/Martin	5th	$250	2
C	Jaycee/Samantha	9th	$100	0
C	Joe/Victor	9th	$100	0
C	Ada/Steven	3rd	$350	2
SCU A/B	Mike/Ng	9th	$100	0
SCU A/B	Jamal/Morgan	5th	$150	2
SCU B/C	Simon/Annie	9th	$100	0
SCU B/C	Jaycee/ChaoShiun	5th	$150	1

Day Two

Day 2 began with a promise for more glories, as there was the Grandmasters event in addition to the A, B and C flight doubles.

Our best representative in the Grandmasters event, Tony Teo, managed to get into the top 5 and won a trophy for his hard work. The Grandmasters' Finals was again a rematch of last year, between Paul Lim and Natthakorn, a top Thai darter. In a game of the Best of the Best, no errors can be made in every dart thrown. And in this year's finals, Paul Lim again managed to beat Nathakorn, though by a bigger margin as compared to last year.

Grandmaster's final with Paul Lim and Natthakorn

In the evening, the special event of the day, Air Attack, got started. This was an interesting game as it is not usually played as a tournament game. However, it seems Singapore players already had lots of experience in this game as four teams managed to reap awards from this event. Sandra and William quickly shot down enough balloons to be the first Singapore team to take the "march to the final pit". However, they could not uncover enough of the hidden balloons in time to win the final game against their Indonesian opponents and got 2nd position for their sharp shooting teamwork.

Felix, Oliver, Martin, Kae with their trophies

Sandra/William with their 2nd place trophies

At the end of the 2nd day, there were indeed more glories for the Singapore contingent with another 15 trophies collected.

Day Two
Flight	Players	Placing	Total Prize (US$)	Trophy
AirAttack B/C	Jaycee/Felix	5th	$150	2
AirAttack B/C	Simon/Annie	3rd	$200	2
AirAttack B/C	Sandra/William	2nd	$300	2
AirAttack B/C	Ada/Steven	5th	$150	2
B	Mike/Martin	3rd	$400	2
C	Eve/Apple	9th	$100	0
C	Kae/Jo	5th	$200	2
C	Vincent/Zoe	5th	$200	2
Grandmaster	Tony Teo	5th	$400	1

Day Three

This was the final day of the event. Although everyone was a little tired, there was still a strong determination to win more prizes. And finally, we had two teams to represent Singapore in the finals pit. Mohd Sani, who played as a NRP was teamed up with Hong Kong player, Alex Hon to play in the A flight. They managed to beat many strong teams to reach the final pit against another Hong Kong team. Both players shot tremendously well under pressure to overcome their opponents and brought home the champion pearl-colored trophy.

Alex/Sani with their champion trophies and Morgan

Ng,Steven,Ada,Mike with their winnings

The other Singapore team that made it to the finals was Sebastian and Chee Wee, in the B flight event. Both played very well in the run up to the finals game. On the finals pit, they fought tooth and nail trying to overcome the Thai team but in the end, could not survive and took home 2nd placing. It was very exciting to cheer on the 3 Singaporeans on the stage and in the end, everyone was happy and proudly waving their Singapore flags.

All finalist going up the finals pit

Sebastian/Chee Wee with the Thai team

Day Three
Flight	Players	Placing	Total Prize (US$)	Trophy
A	Jamal/Morgan	5th	$300	2
A	Sani/Alex Hon	1st	$600	1
B	Mike/Ng	5th	$250	2
B	Sebastian/Chee Wee	2nd	$700	2
C	Eve/Shin	9th	$100	0
C	Jenny/Sammi	9th	$100	0
C	Mariam/Haris	9th	$100	0
C	Ada/Steven	5th	$200	2
C	Jaycee/Samantha	3rd	$350	2

The last day of the tournament finally ended in the evening and almost everyone in the Singapore contingent had won prizes. We took home a total of 35 cups and more than US$6000 in cash prizes. There was no doubt that the players were all excited with the event and finally can rest their tired arms and feet and catch up on some shopping!

* All placings, other than 1st and 2nd, are joint placings.

You can view more pictures of the tournament in the photo gallery.
See more pictures at Medalist Hong Kong website.