By Cheryl Tan

It is hardly in the league of the Olympics, but a new sport is gaining popularity in schools here: stacking cups.

LifeStyle's not talking about doing the washing up and putting your cups in a tidy pile.

These are custom-made plastic cups costing about $18 each, used in an activity called cupstacking in which competitors race against the clock to stack and unstack 12 cups into formations.

The sport, which originated in the United States, has taken Singapore by storm.

In fact, a national team of five boys from Ngee Ann Primary School bagged three individual and three team awards at this year's World Championships held in the US in April.

Cup-stacking requires quick hand-eye coordination and schools are eager to get it taught as an elective.

In the past year alone, over 50 schools ranging from primary schools to junior colleges have enrolled in programmes set up by the two cupstacking companies here, Crazy-cups and World Sport Stacking Association (WSSA), Singapore.

The Singapore Sports Council also offers cupstacking to schools under the Sports Education Programme, a collaborative partnership between the Ministry of Education and the council.

Under the programme, each school is given a $10,000 grant to take up sports programmes from an endorsed list.

Local startup Crazy-cups' courses are for pupils. The local arm of US-based WSSA is not on the endorsed list, but it targets teachers in schools so that they can introduce the sport to their pupils in their own time.

The head of Lianhua Primary's PE department, Mr Vincent Low, was so intrigued that he invited Crazy-cups last month to teach his Primary 2 pupils.

He says the sport helps develop motor and cognitive skills. His pupils enjoyed the classes so much that the school plans to introduce cupstacking to other classes.

Still, sports surgeon Tan Jee Lim notes that cupstacking is 'not a traditional sport'. He says it would be hard to define it as one because a real sport requires actual 'physical activities that make use of the cardiovascular system in order to improve'.

Cupstacking, he says, is more of a leisure pursuit, 'like playing Xbox and PSP'.

'It's more of a game that requires hand-eye coordination and good reflexes,' he says.

The sport's carthartic aspect is one of the reasons why world cycle stack champ, 11-year-old Arnold Teo from Ngee Ann Primary, likes it so much. 'It's fun and helps me to destress,' he says.

He is part of the team that represented Singapore, coming tops in his age group for the cupstacking sequence, cycle stacking.

He is so determined to shave his time even further from his personal best of 6.96 sec that his housewife mum Celine Teo, 41, says he has cracked his cups during fast and furious 45-minute practice sessions at home.

The current world record for the same sequence is 6.21 sec.

Cupstacking has also helped shy children such as Ong Zi Tao gain confidence. His mother, freelance art instructor Tan Sze Fong, 38, is supportive of him stacking cups because she feels it helps him gain self-confidence.

The 10-year-old Ngee Ann Primary School pupil picked it up early last year.

His schoolmate Arnold, meanwhile, is focused on defending his title come November in the WSSA Singapore National Sport Stacking Championship, saying: 'I just want to do my very best and win a trophy.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Aug 31, 2008.