High Performance Journey is a One Team Singapore Effort

High-Performance Journey is a One Team Singapore Effort

• Athletes, parents, coaches, officials, sport specialists, NSAs, corporates, institutions come together to celebrate as One

• 5th year of spexScholarship programme boasts biggest cohort of 78 scholars across 24 sports with 17 new scholars

Singapore 20 March 2018 – It can be one person’s dream to be the best; but the journey to inspire the nation through sporting excellence involves many. The gathering at the ‘Celebrate What’s Right’ event saw members of this sporting ecosystem come together to reaffirm their support for the journey, as well as, welcome new athletes to the spexScholarship programme this year.

Honouring the occasion, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Ms Grace Fu said, “It’s heartening to see the stakeholders of our High-Performance Sports system come together to celebrate our continued partnership. It takes a community, including the national sports associations (NSAs), corporations and schools, working together to support our national athletes as One Team Singapore.”

Ms Fu also encouraged the NSAs to strengthen their support for athletes. She added, “In this long journey of athlete development, NSAs play a crucial role. I would like to urge NSAs to develop a comprehensive and sustained long-term plan, with clarity of purpose, and put in place a strong professional team to implement the plan.”

spexBusiness & spexEducation

Started off with just eight organisations in 2014, the spexBusiness and spexEducation networks have grown to 57 with 19 joining this year. To date, the network has supported more than 200 Team Singapore athletes and 400 student-athletes through the spexBusiness and spexEducation schemes respectively.

As we welcome new partners, we recognised spexBusiness partners who have gone above and beyond to support Team Singapore initiatives. The five organisations that were awarded the accolade of ‘spexBusiness Champions’ are; adidas, Deloitte, Fullerton Health, OSIM and Swissotel the Stamford.

spexScholarship 2018

The fifth cohort of Sport Excellence Scholarship (spexScholarship) programme welcomed 17 new scholars with Minister Fu presenting the awards to them. The programme now has 78 scholars across 24 sports. This consists of the new, existing, and 19 more whose scholarships have been renewed.

Mr Richard Seow Chairman of the spexSchorship Selection Committee congratulated this cohort of spexScholars, welcoming them to the ranks of a select group of athletes that have podium potential in regional and world competitions. “My congratulations to our new spexScholars who have shown their talent, ambition and commitment to be selected for the coveted spexScholarship. Their early successes and drive have shown their potential to bring sporting success to Singapore. Now as spexScholars, the level of support will increase to help motivate them to take on the challenge to succeed at the highest levels of their sport and in doing so, rally the community and inspire our nation.

The sport of Wushu and Squash will be represented for the first time in the spexScholarship programme by Jowen Lim and Ho Lin Ying from Wushu and Sneha Sivakumar from Squash.

Sneha Sivakumar who came in third for the Asian Junior Team Championship 2017 shared her hopes. "I am honoured and grateful to have received the spexScholarship. With more structured support from SportSG I hope that I will be able to improve exponentially and have some major breakthroughs."

Understanding the commitment required to take their sport performance to the next level, athletes like Soh Sze Ying (Canoeing), Calvin Sim (Cycling) and Luo Yiwei (Cycling) will be taking a break from their full-time jobs to seize this window of opportunity to see how far they can push themselves to achieve success on the international stage.

Calvin Sim, who won the SEA Games gold medal in Cycling (Track) Omnium last year shared, “I am truly honoured and grateful to receive the spexscholarship. With the holistic support from SSI, I am able to continue my pursuit of excellence in my sporting journey and hope to achieve more successes in Asian and international competitions.”

Ryan Lo (Sailing) and Muhammad Iqbal (Pencak Silat) will be back on the spexScholarship after completing their NS and achieved respectable results whilst serving NS. For Mohamed Ismail Bin Hussain (Para-bowling), he has shown consistent results in para-bowling having recently won the TPB3 men’s singles and Masters at the IBSA World Championships 2017. He will also return to the programme after a two-year hiatus after he completed his previous spexScholarship bond in end -2015 as a doubles para-bowler.

Mohamed Ismail is grateful to the Singapore Disability Sports Council and the Bowling Association for the Disabled for helping him get another chance at pursuing his passion. “In my first spexScholarship, I had my doubles partner, Thomas Yong with me. This time round, as a singles player, I have to be more disciplined. I will be working closely with my Coach and with good communication and teamwork to be even more determined, driven and focused on achieving better results from previous tournaments. I aim to be one of the best bowlers in the world for my respective category of TPB3.”

Mr Seow, who is also the Chairman of Sport Singapore, added “Into our fifth year of awards, we have seen an increase in applications from athletes under 20 years old. This is very encouraging and essential for developing our pipeline of future champions. It’s a positive indicator of advances in our High-Performance system and how with the support of coaches, officials and scientists working in tandem with the athletes and families we can ensure a steady flow of future champions for Singapore. We are committed to nurture and support our best talents to maximise their potential to do us proud at Asian, Olympic and World levels.”

The Singapore Sport Institute received 91 nominations across 22 sports and shortlisted 37 applicants from 15 sports. Following interviews with the applicants, the High-Performance Sport (HPS) & Performance Sub-Committee and HPS Steering Committee reviewed and shortlisted candidates before arriving at the final list.