Gone are the days where only seasoned athletes are allowed to parade in sportswear whereas the “average Joe” will be judged when he tries to wear one.

“Express the Nike in You” was held online for a month long as it focuses on regular teenagers aged between 17 and 25 to “express their love and passion for sports”.

The online competition amassed an impressive 230 submissions. In total, 10 photo and 3 video entries were selected to compete in the grand finale on June 4 at Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Atrium.

The winner of the photo category, Shannon Tay captured the heart of the judges with his emotional concept for his entry.

The winning photo entry “Compassion”

“I wanted to show a person on the running track in his most desperate time of need and I think this photo really captures the meaning of compassion in sport,” the 19-year-old said.

Winners of the video category, Mass Communication graduates , Jarrel Tan, Chee Hui Ming, Nur Aini Jaffar and Amirul Nasir submitted an entertaining and amusing video entry that caused the audience at the Atrium to erupt in laughter.

Jarrel and friends re-enacting their winning video entry

Jarrel Tan, 19, described the video as an experience that “took tons of balls to pull it off”. He further explained, “We aren’t sporty so we played to our strengths, which is to have fun and be spontaneous. There was a lot of chickening out initially but we convinced ourselves to ‘just do it’.”

Nike Ambassadors MTV VJ Utt and Miss Singapore Universe 2007 Jessica Tan, the guest judges of Express the Nike in You campaign on Jun 4, were notably moved by the photograph titled Compassion.

Utt was so impressed he said he could envision their video being broadcast, even on MTV.

Utt gives his sign of approval to the contestants

Utt justified the reason for picking the winners, “The quality of entries was excellent and extremely diverse. We both had our favourites but eventually we were able to come to a decision after looking at the creativity of each entry and of course, humour helped.”

Crowds streamed into the seated event as early as 2.30 pm.

However, the audiences were kept on their toes by the upbeat and exhilarating performances of CCA groups from Ngee Ann Polytechnic such as percussion group Baracuda Batucada, award-winning hip-hop group New Revolving Age (NRA) and Ngee Ann Football Club (NPFC).

3 members of NPFC transposed the rhythm of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” to sublime, silky skills while the boys of NRA who were clad in black mesmerised the crowd with their “popping” and “locking” techniques.

Baracuda Batucada performed 2 awe-inspiring sets in total to open and close the event. The 150-strong crowd marveled at the syncronisation of the various percussion instruments that were used to create a symphonic sound.

Baracuda Batuca putting on an adrenaline pumping performance for the audience


In the end, everyone was given a chance to not walk home empty handed as 6 lucky members from the audience won the lucky draw contest.