S'pore women’s tchoukball team make history, ranks world's No. 1, but only finds out a month later from Facebook post

SINGAPORE — In a happy accident, the president of the Tchoukball Association of Singapore, Delane Lim, discovered that the Singapore women’s team is ranked the highest in the world through a Facebook post on Jan 27.

The team also discovered it’d held the pole position for around a month. The joyful discovery set off a flurry of congratulations to the women’s team, as this is the first time they’ve reached such an achievement, besting the powerful Chinese Taipei team to take first place.

Ms Irene Tan, the team captain, told The Straits Times that they don’t check on world rankings, which are updated once a year. On Jan 27, Mr Lim saw a post on the International Tchoukball Federation (FITB) FB page which said that the “new FITB ranking is updated” and contained links for both the men's and women’s rankings.

[caption id="attachment_476787" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] screengrab/https://fitb.org[/caption]

“Congratulations to our women's team for putting us on the world map! We want to thank all our supporters and partners who believe in them. Without them, the team will not be where we are today!” wrote the Tchoukball Association of Singapore on Monday (Jan 30).

What is Tchoukball anyway? Popular in Singapore, Switzerland, and Taiwan, it’s an indoor sport created in the 1970s in Switzerland by a man named Hermann Brandt, who was concerned over the injuries athletes received due to aggression and physical contact. The sport contains elements of squash, netball, and handball.

Here’s a video that shows how the sport goes:

 

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The team received an outpouring of congratulations and support from netizens for their achievement.

[caption id="attachment_476783" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Screenshot from Facebook comments / The Straits Times[/caption] [caption id="attachment_476785" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Screenshot from Facebook comments / The Straits Times[/caption]

One even tagged Education Minister Chan Chun Sing in her comment.

[caption id="attachment_476784" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Screenshot from Facebook comments / The Straits Times[/caption]

“Pls sponsor them instead of the football team. At least they are winning something,” another wrote.

[caption id="attachment_476786" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Screenshot from Facebook comments / The Straits Times[/caption]

In case you were wondering, the Singapore men’s tchoukball team is ranked third behind Chinese Taipei and Italy respectively. As the saying goes, the only way is up!

[caption id="attachment_476788" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] screengrab/https://fitb.org[/caption] /TISG https://theindependent.sg/well-deserved-congratulations-pour-in-marking-loh-kean-yews-big-win-as-sportsman-of-the-year/