Tarik tali....

Last week, I joined in a tug-of-war competition. The competition was part of Outdoor Carnival 2008.

Initially, when Ikhwan (IkanGori) approached me with the idea of forming a team together from our own Jan 2006 batch, I was interested to join, with the condition that I won't be the anchor (the last guy at the end of the line). So he kinda agreed with me..


Ikhwan(yellow shirt), Enol (sitting) and Kopi signing out petitions for better WIFI connection.

During the competition day, it turned out that, instead of the anchor, I was going to be one of the anchors, the other one being Ikhwan himself. Fair enough. Seeing that I am pretty much categorised, tug-of-war-wise, as people who are good (read:overweight), I knew I was going to be one myself. And I kinda enjoyed it, since tug-of-war is one of the few sports I can participate without feeling too sorry for myself, apart from walking, jogging and running up stairs.

The team members making fun of Alip's unorthodoxly shiny noggin.

Anyhow, during the competition day, there were only four teams; Kelab Kembara UTP, OC committee, Prop 06, and the last, but probably the least, our aptly-named team Sayur.

Team Sayur: Not as sayur as you'd think.

The rules were easy to understand and easier to forget. Basically, in league-style competition, one team plays four matches. In each match, there are a maximum of three rounds. Win one rounds, get one pointWin two rounds in a row, the team wins the match. At the end of the competition, the team with the most points wins. Simple enough.

Our team, from left: Kamil, Pezal, Keme, GG, Bari' and Ikhwan. Pejan was out of the picture and I was taking this picture.

I couldn't remember which team was our first match against, but we won the match. The second match, I forgot too, but in the end we lost. After the second round, my body was starting to feel the pain.My back's on fire. My soles were burning. My arm muscles were so sore, I couldn't hold the drinks cup steadily. For the first time since god-knows-when, I was on the verge of collapsing.

Air kelapa (coconut juice). 70% of them are ice, tho.

After a few air kelapa drinks and a brief nap, our team was ready to make a comeback. However, there was a situation. The OC team were nowhere to be seen. Since they were the ones in charge of the carnival that day, they had to go and supervise things up. In short, they forfeited. To accomodate this, the rules were changed: instead of continuing the competition anymore, the organising committee decided to end the competition quickly. So, the team with the most points was named as the winner of the whole game, which went to the Kelab kembara team.

Pulling time: Not the best moment to get distracted.

Anyway, just for the sake of having some sort of semblance to a thoroughly-played competition, wour team were asked to go against the KK team. If we won, we're second place. If we lose, We're still second place. In the end, we lose. Not for the lack of fighting spirit, tho - we gave our best shot for our final match. Nevertheless, we're satisfied enough with whatever we've won (the prize for second place is RM50), so after a few more drinks and buying some donuts for Dunkin' Donuts, we went back to our rooms.

I was going to Photoshop this into making Ikhwan lokk like he's holding a fishing rod later...