SINGAPORE — It was a clean sweep for Singapore at the inaugural 28th SEA Games floorball competition (June 11-14) as both the men’s and women’s teams emerged triumphant in the finals held at the ITE College Central today (June 14).

Backed by a vociferous crowd of over 1,100 people, the Singapore women’s team clinched gold via a penalty shoot-out (2-1) over a resilient Thai team that was only formed six months ago.  

Singapore scored through Yeo Xuan, Debbie Poh and Ong Hui Hui in normal-time, which ended 3-3. Extra time also did nothing to determine a winner as the two sides failed to score any goals. 

Over in the men’s final, it was a one-sided affair as Singapore routed Thailand 9-0, with Siraaj Ramadhan scoring a brace, and teammates Rashid Jalaluddin, Alvin Tan, Hafiz Abdul Zubir, Lim Jian Hong, Suria R., Mckenrick Lim, and Syazni Ramlee also getting onto the score sheet. 

“The historic gold medals represent a milestone for the sport in Singapore, in terms of hopefully pushing it to receive more support and recognition,” said Singapore Floorball Association President, Sani Mohamed Salim. 

“Looking at the packed venue today, this is the first time we ever got such a good crowd to watch us, and we have hopefully won a few hearts over today. 

“We hope for venues to train too, as both our men’s and women’s currently only train at Hougang Sports Centre.” 

Singapore men’s floorball team captain Syazni added: “I told my team that we will play like champions out there, no matter how bad we bleed or suffer, we will fight it out for the gold. The gold means a lot, because this is the first time floorball is included in the SEA Games, and even if it is (the) last time, we made history.”

The Singapore women’s floorball team will be looking ahead to the Floorball World Cup in Finland in December, while the men’s team are gunning for qualification for the 2016 Men’s World Floorball Championships to be held in Latvia. 

Said Singapore women’s floorball player Jill Quek, who has played in six World Cup outings for the national team: “We can be considered strong in floorball regionally, but now we want to get a good result on the world’s stage too. We try our best all the time.”