Guinea Bissau 2010 SYOG Gold Medalists

A commercial issue marking the Youth Olympics Games in Singapore has come to light. This first set is issued for Guinea Bissau with a sheetlet containing 4 stamps, and miniature sheet with a single stamp in it. The issue actually celebrates the gold medalists for several events: judo, kayaking, tennis, teble tennis and swimming. The 4 stamps in the sheetlet features the following young athletes: judo men 100 kg winner Ryosuke Igarashi from Japan, swimming women's 50 m backstroke winner Mathilde Cini from France, tennis women's single winner Daria Gavrilova from Russia, and kayaking women's K1 slalom winner Jessica Fox from Australia. The stamp on the miniature sheet features judo women 53 kg winner Miku Tashiro from Japan; the sheet selvage features 2 other gold medalists: table tennis women singles winner Gu Yuting and tennis women doubles winner Zheng Saisai, both from China. Neither sheet contains any official logo for the Singapore Youth Olympic Games, however, judoka Miku in the miniature sheet is shown clasping the games mascot Merly. Every medalist at these games were given a mini stuffed mascot, Merly for girls and Lyo for boys.

Youth Olympic Games 2010

The first Youth Olympic Games opens in Singapore 14 August 2010. To mark the historic occasion, the Singapore Post released 4 stamps featuring the sporting, educational and cultural characteristics. Lyo and Merly, the games mascots, appear in all the stamps. The illustration in the 1st local stamp represents the World Culture Village and 65-cent stamp represents the Island Adventure activities for the youthful athletes when not competing. The $1.10 and $2.00 stamps feature swimming and basketball. A post office was specially set up in the Youth Olympic Village, located in the western part of Singapore. The FDC shown above is from the Youth Olympic Village as shown by the day cancellation and the first day cancellation numbered 66. The Youth Olympic Village is normally accessible only to athletes, Olympiad officials and workers for the games; visitors have to apply for special passes.

Singapore 2009 Asian Youth Games

This MyStamp sheet was released 29 June 2009, to mark the opening of the 1st Asian Youth Games (AYG) in Singapore. The release was rather restrained, in that the Singapore Post did not make any big announcement for it, because it was commissioned by the organisers of the AYG; actually it was lumped together with other AYG souvenirs, liked the AYG mascot stuffed toy and AYG mugs, in a sales brochure. What is interesting is that it contains the latest MyStamp 1st local stamps with vignettes featuring the mascot lion playing various sports: table tennis, springboard diving, yachting/sailing, basketball, 10-pin bowling, shooting, volleyball, athletics, soccer and swimming.