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Meet the young athletes championing niche sports and representing Singapore at the international games
When Joseph Schooling won Singapore’s first Olympic gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the country celebrated along with him. It didn’t matter where you were or who you were with, the energy then was infectious, and his win became the topic on everyone’s lips—with each conversation filled with praise and admiration.
Of course, there have been other sporting achievements since. At the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, the Quah siblings clinched top honours with record times: Jing Wen emerged victorious in the women’s 200m butterfly race; Zheng Wen broke the national record in the men’s 100m backstroke; Ting Wen was triumphant in the women’s 100m freestyle race—making it a spectacular family affair.
These are but only a handful of stories from the Singapore sports scene, but each record-breaking milestone demonstrates the power of sports in bringing everyone together. Most recently, the Olympic games also saw the nation embracing our athletes, no matter the outcome. Behind these games are a tremendous amount of effort and discipline from the athletes who are flying the Singapore flag high—with some excelling in sports that most of us don’t even know about.
With many of our young athletes participating in the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics this year, we catch up with them and highlight the rising stars in niche sporting categories who are slowly but surely starting to turn heads.
See also: Tokyo Olympics 2020: The Best Moments From The Games
Above Photo: Cheah Cheng poh/Singapore Disability Sports Council
Photo: Cheah Cheng poh/Singapore Disability Sports Council
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Just race—these two words ring the loudest when the going gets tough for national para-swimmer Toh Wei Soong. “Don’t think so much. Just race. You have raced before, and you have endured worse. Just trust yourself, and race.”
The 22-year-old athlete was diagnosed with the rare condition of transverse myelitis at the age of two. The condition is caused by the inflammation of the spinal cord, which is a part of the central nervous system sending impulses to the brain and the rest of the body. But his condition didn’t stop him from swimming and going as far as representing Singapore on the world stage.
Above Photo: Colin Ong
Photo: Colin Ong
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In 2018, he bagged a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games, and two golds in the Asian Para Games.
Toh shares: “The social stigma against disability is often misplaced. It’s because people see the Other where no Other exists. People with disabilities are regular people: we do certain things differently, yet we have dreams like everyone else. I do not have a disability; I feel I have none. Hence, I have never paid much attention to it. It was never something worthwhile to make an exception of.”
Sheer grit and the prospect of progress is what keeps him going. Having an early start in the sport at the age of two also means that Toh isn’t able to fathom a life without it. “The sport becomes part of you,” he shares. “It’s second nature to swim, compete, and deal with the anxieties that accompany them.”
Trainings are tough, and Toh admits that swimming can be an unforgiving and cruel sport. “It requires that you never leave the pool, and it punishes you if you do so. If you leave for a few days, your body will forget the sensation of the pool. It forgets that it was ever floating on water and makes you learn again.”
With physical restrictions placed during onset of the pandemic, the athlete also found himself in a tough spot going for long periods without training in the pool. But a silver lining persists: “The body forgets and the body punishes. But we got over that and learnt again with the chance to undo bad habits. We took the good with the bad.”
But hard work pays off, and this month, Toh makes his debut at the Paralympics in Tokyo. “It was a wonderful feeling,” he shares on the moment he knew he qualified for the event, “it was wonderful because I had others to support me and to whom I could be thankful to. Seeing the qualification announcement was an affirmation of the good work we have done together, but it isn’t over yet.”
To him, there is an underrated value in the Paralympics as compared to the Olympics. “Both tell stories of perseverance, struggle and overcoming [the odds], but the former has an added dimension. A Paralympian has weathered not only harsh training, but the difficult gauntlet of breaking assumptions in a way that Olympians do not reach. This isn’t to downplay the Olympics either, but rather to draw attention to the Paralympics with its powerful brand of storytelling—each chapter with an exceptional narrative power that is underused.”
See also: Everything to Know About the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games
