ON THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF AN ATHLETE

Ting Wen: Focus. Growing up, I was kept busy being a student athlete, with school and swim all the time—it was easy to pack up my schedule, and there was a clear structure as we had to adhere to a certain timetable around semesters, exams, training and competitions. As I got older, however, and transitioned from student to professional athlete, my schedule became a bit more fluid, and that’s where focus became a little more challenging. You’d think it’ll be harder for kids to focus, but it was the other way around for me. As an adult, I had all this free time open up after daily trainings, and that’s when I had to learn how to be a professional athlete by scheduling ways to take care of my body. There was a time for recovery, for nutrition, for quality sleep—it was a whole lifestyle to upkeep. So focus is essential for an athlete, how you manage your time and your energy. Drive is another key quality—a deep, strong passion for what you’re doing.

Zheng Wen: Mine’s quite similar to Ting’s. A lot of it is about drive. But I’d say another thing is not just about wanting it, but to consciously remind yourself every single day what you want, and why you want it. It’s about being present and not fall into the routine of it all. Like, yes I’m putting in the work, but to be present during training, for example, is to keep your mind engaged. It’s easy to swim laps, but how am I continuously improving my strokes, why am I feeling tired, is there a muscle I need to work on, how can I swim faster. And when it comes to focus, it’s also about not letting stuff outside the pool affect what we do in the pool—when we’re in the water, it’s not just our bodies, but our mind is in it 100 per cent.

ON MOTIVATION, AND SELF-MOTIVATION

Ting Wen: Honestly, it’s not like we wake up every morning super motivated, or always loving what we do. There are slow days, and there are bad days. It’s like what my brother said, it’s important to be present. Because having done this for the last 18 to 19 years, I sometimes find myself falling into a rut, a place of complacency, or just a sense of being too comfortable—all periods of time that I was good, but not great. And I was ok with that, but looking back, I get disappointed. So being present and intentional, and aware, is key to not just surviving but thriving throughout the monotony of our training. So we’re not just going through the motions.

ON THEIR GREATEST CHALLENGES

Ting Wen: Back in secondary school, a lot of my peers were figuring out life and their social lives. I went to Raffles Girls School so it was right by Orchard Road, and while everyone else went to town after school to study, eat and hang out, I went to the pool. It didn’t really affect me at the time because my social time was at the pool with my teammates, but there were times when I noticed my friends stopped asking me to join them. Not that they didn’t want me there, but more because we just accepted the fact that they were always going to ask and I was always going to say no. So I think I missed out on that part of being a teenager, and when people ask about some of the sacrifices we’ve made as student athletes, I’d say this is one of them. That said, I wouldn’t say I gave up social time, I just had it in a different way. And I feel I grew as a person differently—swimming taught me so many important life lessons and life skills, like being a good team player, communication skills, discipline and perseverance.

Zheng Wen: I’m quite a bit more introverted than my sister, so I didn’t experience this challenge as much. But if I had to pinpoint a certain period or challenge to overcome, it would be the time between 2018 and 2019. I had been in the US for over a year and was still trying to adjust and well, be independent in a new environment. I was on my own, had to take care of all sorts of things like cooking for myself, planning my schedule, dealing with school, and along the way with all this extra noise, so to speak, I didn’t manage to put my all into training. I regret that I didn’t realise this earlier on, and was content with how it was at that point—to be good, but not great. And it wasn’t a slow, gradual decent, to be honest. The wake up call came at the World Championships in 2019; I was a far cry from where I wanted and needed to be, and that really disappointed me. I was like, I have to make a change. It was a huge mental shift for me, and a great learning process. And now, I’m in the army while also trying to train full time towards the 2024 Summer Olympics. That’s a big goal of mine. I know what I want now, and I know I have to be driven, but I’m also aware that there are things I can’t. Each chapter of life comes with it’s own set of challenges, right?

Ting Wen: You know, you come out of university and all your friends from swimming retire from the sport. They hang up their swimsuits and go to work. Whereas for me, I continued on to becoming a professional athlete. So over the last six, seven years, every time I go out with my friends, they talk about switching jobs, moving up the ranks, and when it comes to me, my updates are pretty much the same since I was eight: swimming. For a while that bothered me, that everyone was moving into newer chapters of life, and the competitive side of me felt like I was falling behind. So it took me a while to regain my footing and be proud of what I was doing. What’s also hard is with working and adulting is what we earn—let’s just say we earn titles but not so much in pay. But we’re always finding ways to make it work.

ON THEIR BIGGEST WINS

Ting Wen: I know I should name some of our swim achievements, but to me, the biggest win would be how close we are as a family. Sharing the same sport, the same passion, and the same goals have made us extremely tight knit as siblings, and with our parents, who have been our biggest supporters from day one. Our relationships with one another are on another level, because we’ve been growing and pursuing goals together.

Zheng Wen: Yes, we’re a very close knit family now, after years of us kids being away at university at different times since 2010, which was when Ting first left for college. As for biggest wins in the pool… each race comes with its own individual challenges, and it’s not always when you swam the fastest. A win could be in the sense that we still came out victorious despite what was affecting us outside of the pool, going through things that we didn’t let shadow what we were did as swimmers. But if I have to list the most memorable moments, it’d probably be competing at the 2016 Olympics with my sister. I was the first guy to make semifinals for multiple events at the Olympics, and that was a big deal—and self-esteem boost—for me. It was then that I finally cultivated the belief that I could hang with the best. That’s such an important thing—self-belief—to go out there and race on the world stage, because you cannot be up there intimidated, hesitant or afraid. I became more confident and self-assured, and became a better athlete because of it. I proved to myself that I had it.

ON THEIR HIGHEST HOPES & EVER-EVOLVING GOALS

Ting Wen: We’ve done almost every single competition possible, and to the highest level of our capabilities. I still do it because I can, physically and mentally. I’m lucky I’m still able to do this, and keep up with the training. Mentally, I love being competitive and racing; emotionally, it helps that I’m on this journey with my siblings. We’ve always had a shared personal goal, which is to go to the Olympics together. I went to Beijing, then Zheng when to London by himself. So now we’re all aiming to compete at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris together. That might be the closing chapter of my career… I think. But that’s the thing about us; we reach a point where we say “ok, this might be my last one” then you say “one more” and “one more” again. I’ll honestly be doing this as long as I am capable to do so, but what’s driving us most now is being able to take on Paris together.

Zheng Wen: Every sportsman is naturally a highly competitive person. And we’re never really fully satisfied with our performance, you always want more, and you always work for more. You always wish that you had that extra push at the end. That’s what makes a great, great athlete. They’re always hungry, never satisfied. A good example would be back in 2016. I exceeded all of my own expectations coming in 10th, I never expected to achieve that. But at that point, I saw how little I missed placing higher, and couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Even though I did what I could do, there will always be a part of me, in the back of my mind or deep in my heart that knows I could have done, and can do more. So whenever I feel like I don’t want to do this anymore, or have nothing more to give, I’ll always reminisce that moment, and that feeling—that minuscule different of 0.2 seconds. Like in the real world, what is 0.2 seconds? But to me, in the pool, it could makes a world of a difference. Six years later and I still think about that constantly. Like my sister, I think 2024 may likely be my closing chapter as well, but obviously that remains to be seen. You never know what happens, I’ll never know.

ON THEIR MENTORS AND BEING MENTORS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

Ting Wen: I know what my brother’s thinking so I’m going to say it for us: our parents. They’ve been our role models growing up, and till this day. No one’s perfect, but my parents did everything in their power to be good ones, and raise three children in different schools, pursuing a high level sport. My mum has taken on the role as mother, housewife, “swim mum” and chauffeur for the last 30 years. It’s not been easy, considering our pre-sunrise training schedules that she had to wake us up at 4.30am every single morning for. She was the most organised mum, with a table planner with drop-off and pick-up timings, all at different schools, with various swim schedules. As for our dad, he’s always done everything to make sure we had everything we needed, and to be comfortable while continuing to pursue our goals in and out of the pool. He’s a hustler and works non-stop, just so that we never had to worry about that—we’ve been very fortunate.

Zheng Wen: Yes, our parents have always been there for us. But my sisters have also always been there for me too. And while everyone has their flaws, there’s always something to learn from everyone, and I draw inspiration from each one of them. Everyone in my family does a certain thing exceptionally well, because they care, and that’s the most important thing—caring. My family has played a huge, defining factor in shaping who I am today.

Ting Wen: We’ve joked about how if three of us were combined into one, we’d literally be the perfect blend of superhuman. I’m very technical, I’m good with strokes; my brother is super strong, mentally and physically—he’s a tough racer and no matter how exhausted, he’ll stay focus and jump right back in; and our younger sister, she’s very meticulous, always doing and making sure things are in the right order. She’s a perfectionist with a lot of focus. We’re always finding new ways to learning from one another to make ourselves better. Then there are, of course, our coaches and close friends. I think we’ve picked and chosen qualities from different people we admire and adapted them into our own ways of life. One of our coaches, Sonia, is a superwoman. She would always be on top of things, making sue us swimmers were taken care of, guiding us as we grew up as athletes. She was both management and a coach; she pretty much did everything. I loved how she cared for us as humans, as kids, and not just as swimmers—we really appreciated that.

Zheng Wen: Indeed, Sonia has done a great job, nurturing athletes and kids in the most caring way possible. Because she treated us in such a kind way, it helped us understand and find ourselves better, and bring out our best performance. As for the next generation, having gone overseas and came back, we can see how things can be better—like how young sporting talents can be better supported, nurtured and managed. There’s definitely room for improvement within the system. We want every kid with passion and determination to be able to pursue their dreams, train and join competitions, globally. I feel a lot of us don’t explore these, or the thought of it even, but I want them to know that it’s a viable option, we just need to provide better structure and support to help them realise this. I talked to people with kids, and I realise they’re trying to get their kids to do too many things, that they can’t really hone in on their passions, or develop focus. They’re going to too many classes at like, the age of five? What about focusing on sleep and recovery time, play time outdoors, room for personal growth and passion for hobbies, rather than being afraid that one’s child might fall behind if they can’t speak a few languages or play a few instruments even before primary school. We should focus more on good health, personal development and finding specialisations—and letting kids be kids.

The Quah’s are dressed in Brunello Cucinelli’s fall/winter 2022 collection. Fashioned with soft but structured silhouettes, only the finest fabrics, and a measured elegant spirit, this sartorial presentation embraces flexibility and versatility in style. For the women’s collection, a balance of city dressing and occasion wear comes in the form of sharp blazers, deconstructed trousers, denim pieces and slinky slip dresses; and for the men, comfort and dynamism comes dressed up in pastel hued turtleneck sweaters, ankle-grazing pants, and outerwear featuring longer lines for a more contemporary aesthetic. Ease meets elegance this season at Brunello Cucinelli.

Brunello Cucinelli is available at #01-17/18 Paragon and B1-81A The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands. For more information visit www.brunellocucinelli.com