Steps and Programmes to Identify, Groom and Develop Promising Local Athletes

Ms Poh Li San asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) what forms of support and assistance can be further enhanced to enable our national athletes to succeed in their respective sports; (b) how can world-class coaches in the respective sports be attracted and retained to coach our elite national athletes; and (c) what are the Government’s plans to enhance collaboration and partnerships with the private and people sectors to continue supporting and developing Singapore athletes.

Thank you, Sir. The Government has established a comprehensive approach to identify, nurture and develop Team Singapore athletes. There are two key overarching strategies in this approach.

The first is to provide broad-based, accessible programming and continually enhance sporting infrastructure to give every Singaporean the opportunity to pursue their sporting interests, and hone and develop their skills. The second is to provide holistic, but individualised and personalised support to talented athletes so that they can maximise their own potential and represent Singapore at elite competitions like the Major Games.

Sir, please allow me to elaborate on both these strategies.

To make sports accessible to all Singaporeans, the Government devotes significant resources on mass participation programmes and courses. This includes Sport Singapore (SportSG)’s ActiveSG Academies and Clubs, which offer a more structured way for Singaporeans to pursue their sporting interests and develop their skills.

MCCY and SportSG also work closely with the MOE schools, the People’s Association and the private sport academies to develop, coordinate and implement across the board sport programmes that allow young Singaporeans to experience sports and hone their skills and talents. This itself also helps to grow the base of available talent. The National Sports Associations (NSAs) also play a key role in providing exposure and training opportunities to young Singaporeans.

Our efforts extend beyond mass programming. It is also essential that there is quality infrastructure to enable Singaporeans to engage meaningfully in sports. Over the last three years, we have invested an average of almost $90 million each year to develop and operate stadiums, running tracks, sports halls, pools and other venues that are accessible to the general public.

This strategy not only allows us to foster a strong and broad-based sporting culture in Singapore, but provides opportunities to spot young sporting talents who can be offered pathways to develop their skills and potentially represent our country as national athletes, as Member Xie Yao Quan had asked about.

Sir, over the years, the Government has also developed the High-Performance Sport, or HPS, system which is designed to nurture each high-performance athlete, maximising his or her own potential. The HPS is administered by the Singapore Sport Institute, or SSI, and the National Youth Sport Institute, NYSI.

The HPS system provides athletes with end-to-end support and development. The system assists each athlete in a holistic and personalised way, as I have mentioned. We are able to go down to specific physical attributes, strengths and potential of each individual athlete, as well as determine the demands and requirements of their own respective sport, to maximise performance outcomes.

Central to this approach is the development of a Daily Training Environment for each athlete, under which they are given a range of support and guidance in areas such as sport science and sport medicine, coaching and counselling. All of this are part of the HPS system.

For example, the SSI and NYSI employ leading-edge technology to test, monitor and track performance, setting achievement milestones relevant for the individual challenge each athlete to meet his or her own full potential.

Let me illustrate how the HPS system has supported champion para-swimmer Yip Pin Xiu. Sir, I will use examples in the course of this answer to support and explain some of the points I make, but these examples serve as illustrations as no two sports, and indeed, no two individual athletes are similar, and the HPS system is designed to be curated to bring out the best in each individual athlete.

In Pin Xiu’s case, sport biomechanists at the SSI record and analyse her swim timings and performances, rigorously. They also work closely with her coach and performance director to make fine adjustments and optimise her strokes.

Pin Xiu’s SSI sport physiologist performs regular tests to monitor her own body conditions and provided valuable feedback to her coach on calibrating the volume, frequency and also intensity of her training. At the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, for instance, the SSI sport physiologist employed various forms of heat retention to regulate Pin Xiu’s body temperature while she was in the holding room awaiting her events and this helped her to maximise her performance outcomes at the races. Taken together, SSI’s support for Pin Xiu – and many other athletes – has helped boost their competition performances.

The HPS system supports all our elite athletes by recognising each athlete as a unique individual with specific gifts and abilities. The Government invests in the system and continually enhances it so that our athletes will be supported and developed in a way that best addresses their own individual needs and maximises their potential. The focus is on enabling each athlete to be at their best, to do their best and to succeed against the best in their chosen sport.

Integral to this system is the provision of excellent coaching for our elite athletes, a point which Member Poh Li San asked about. The Government extends substantial grants to the NSAs to enable them to hire selected coaches to train our elite athletes. Additionally, SSI’s sport scientists, specialists and experts work closely with many of these coaches to better integrate them into each athlete’s Daily Training Environment. We endeavour to identify and hire the best coaches for our athletes – foreign or local coaches, and sometimes a blend, so that our coaching environment can also benefit from foreign expertise.

For instance, one of Team Singapore’s fencing coaches is Joseph Davin Engert, who was a former top German national youth fencer and a two-time World Cup Junior champion. Together with our own local coach Henry Koh, who was himself a double bronze medallist at the 2003 SEA Games, they recently led two of our fencers, Amita Berthier and Kiria Tikanah, to their maiden Olympic Games in Tokyo.

There is also local coach Pang Qing Liang, who guided national para-archer Syahidah Alim to her first World Championship title in 2019, an unprecedented feat for a Singaporean. Syahidah has also maintained her top three world rankings to-date over this period of time. For his efforts, Qing Liang won a Singapore Disability Sports Award for best high-performance coach in 2020.

Sir, top coaches are in high demand all over the world, and many talented expatriate coaches rarely remain with one team or in one country for long. Therefore, in hiring top foreign coaches for our athletes, we also want them to transfer their know-how, skills and expertise to Singaporean coaches, so that we can grow our own pool of talented local coaches.

For example, Mulyo Handoyo had coached several international badminton champions including former Olympic Champion Taufik Hidayat as well as guided our very own Ronald Susilo to a career-high world ranking of sixth. While he will step down soon as our national badminton singles head coach after a successful four-year stint to spend more time with his family after being away for an extended period due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he will leave behind a mentoring legacy which impacts not just our players but also our own local coaching pool.

One of them is badminton coach Kelvin Ho. Kelvin is a former national athlete who won a bronze at the 2009 SEA Games before retiring from competition a year later. He has since honed his coaching skills, using his own experience as a top class shuttler and also benefitting from the guidance of coach Mulyo. Many members in this House would have been familiar with the role which Kelvin played in guiding Loh Kean Yew and other shuttlers to their recent successes on the court.

There are many notable local coaches like Qing Liang and Kelvin within the Team Singapore fraternity.

Recently, ex-national swimmer Gary Tan was named as the successor national swimming coach, replacing Australian Stephan Widmer. Gary learnt his craft under Widmer and his predecessor Sergio Lopez. I am confident that Gary with continue in the fine traditions of our Singapore swimming sporting culture.

Sir, in total, the Government invests about $70 million in this HPS system each year, every year. Over the last five years, these investments have paid for many of the initiatives and efforts I have just described. These include: (a) purchasing and operating new technological systems to support the SSI’s sport science facilities; (b) funding the cost of coaches and training programmes, both locally and overseas; (c) providing world-class facilities to allow elite athletes to train in the most optimal conditions possible; and (d) undertaking research and development to offer new and innovative forms of support to our athletes.

Let me share two recent examples of these initiatives. Several years ago, the SSI established an environmental chamber in which factors such as temperature, humidity, wind and altitude can be closely controlled and calibrated. This chamber allows SSI’s sport scientists to monitor the effects of these variables on the performance of each athlete and calibrate their training accordingly. This in turn allows our athletes to acclimatise and to get used to factors such as altitude and temperature in their training environment for competitions.

The second example, when the Badminton World Federation announced that it would be switching to synthetic feathered shuttlecocks for environmental reasons, the SSI’s sport biomechanics team conducted an intensive comparative study of the flight and projection characteristics of the new shuttlecocks and how each of our individual Team Singapore badminton players perform with them. This study resulted in valuable customised guidance to each player on how he or she can modify his or her movements to adapt to the speed and flight of the new shuttlecocks. These are some of the examples of the intrinsic support which we provide to Team Singapore athletes, through the HPS system.

In the coming years, we will continue to commit a high level of funding to the HPS system because we believe this will enable us to continue enhancing the system, especially in areas that will maximise the individual performance of our elite athletes.

Sir, besides funding HPS at a broad infrastructural systems level, at the broad infrastructure, systems level, a significant portion of funding also goes to supporting our athletes directly. For example, there is the spexScholarship, which is offered to the most promising athletes to allow them to excel at the Major Games and who can then serve as role models for young Singaporeans.

The scholarship provides a monthly stipend that allows athletes to take care of their daily expenses. There is also funding to help offset their coaching costs, participate in local and overseas training and competitions, purchase equipment and obtain additional sport medicine and sport science support if they require it. There is, of course, a range in the amount of the financial support available, with our top athletes supported at several thousand dollars per month for those who can excel at the highest level of their sport.

The spexScholarship has been given to 168 able-bodied and para-athletes since its establishment in 2013. There are currently, at this point in time, 76 scholarship holders, coming from a diverse cross section of sports. Several of them have won medals at the Major Games and at the world championship level and a handful, like Pin Xiu and Kean Yew, are household names amongst Singaporeans.

But, Sir, the Government’s support for our elite athletes is not just a matter of dollars and cents, it is not just financial support, and not only about the technical or sports science support. It also extends to many other aspects of our athletes' lives and enables them to compete in sports while excelling as students, professionals and as exemplary members of society.

We recognise that each athlete will face different challenges outside of the sporting arena, at different stages of their own lives.

The Sport Excellence (spex) framework addresses these needs. It comprises several schemes to help athletes at various stages and across various facets of their lives, so that they can thrive in both sporting and non-sporting environments. Let me briefly describe some of these initiatives.

The spexEducation scheme was set up in 2013 to help athletes meet the demands of sports and education. I think it is a question that many parents, many athletes ask themselves: "How do we do both well at the same time?" The scheme assists student-athletes to balance their sporting and academic pursuits by supporting them with school admissions, scholarships and also importantly, scheduling their day-to-day classes and exams around their training sessions and competitions. This scheme has been made possible through agreements between SportSG and 16 partner Institutions of Higher Learning (IHLs), including the ITEs, Polytechnics, NUS and SMU.

More than 500 student-athletes have benefited from this scheme. One of them is national shooter Martina Veloso, who has won two Commonwealth Games gold medals and a gold at the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup in 2014. Martina, a graduate of Nanyang Polytechnic, is a beneficiary of the spexEducation scheme.

The Polytechnic, itself, is a strong supporter and partner of the scheme, proactively assisted Martina in managing her class and examination schedules, granted her extensions for the submission of assignments and offered her a customised path of study that accommodated her own training, and also travel and competition commitments.

There is also the spexBusiness network to help athletes who are stepping into the workforce secure jobs and pursue meaningful careers whilst at the same time balancing their own sporting commitments. The scheme also provides support to those who are retiring from active competition and training, in their transition to full-time work.

The network currently comprises more than 60 companies and organisations across more than 25 industries. These provide a wide array of career opportunities to Team Singapore athletes. They include Deloitte, Adidas, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and OCBC Bank, just to name a few.

Since 2013, 330 former and current athletes have been assisted through this scheme.

Take Sophie Soon for example, our national para-swimmer. She is one such beneficiary. Sophie started her internship in 2019 at Toyota Motors Asia Pacific, which is a spexBusiness partner. The company supported Sophie's rigorous preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games by offering her a flexible work schedule. Sophie has proven herself as both a top athlete and a model working professional. She finished fourth in her breaststroke final at the Games and was hired as a full-time staff with Toyota after she graduated from the Polytechnic.

Besides Sophie, other athletes who have benefited from the spexBusiness scheme include badminton player Jaslyn Hooi, taekwondo exponent Chelsea Sim, wushu exponent Ho Lin Ying and synchronised swimmer Miya Yong. These programmes help them to train and balance the commitments of working professional life, allowing them to do both meaningfully.

Next, the spex framework also offers direct monetary grants. These include spexGLOW, or Grant for Loss of Wages, which offsets any lost wages sustained from missing work either through preparation or competition at the Major Games. There is also spexTAG, or Training Assistance Grant, which helps to defray athletes' training costs. In the last five years, some 4,000 athletes have used these grants to pursue their sporting ambitions.

Apart from the spex schemes which I have just outlined, the SSI and NYSI commit time, effort and attention to promote the well-being of each athlete through his or her own sporting journey. Under the Athlete Life Management framework, the SSI and NYSI focus on integrating sports performance with interventions to promote mental well-being and stress management.

Since 2020, Sport Singapore has also engaged athletes to identify possible symptoms of psychological and mental distress, including eating and sleeping disorders. The HPS system recognises that athletic performance at the elite level can experience unpredictable peaks and troughs, and progression is rarely linear or predictable. The competitive sport environment is one that can exert and can impart tremendous, immense stress and pressure on even the most resilient of our athletes.

Mr Speaker, beyond just having the best training methods, employing cutting edge technology and sport science and giving financial support, the one other key success factor for us has been our talent, our people talent. The team behind Team Singapore. We have officers at the SSI and NYSI who are prepared to and often go beyond the call of duty and they become friends, counsellors, mentors and a source of personal support to our athletes. This personal, dedicated approach is a key feature of the care given to each athlete in the HPS system.

And one excellent example of this is Muhammad Hidayat Osman, a strength and conditioning specialist at NYSI. Hidayat works with our young wrestlers on areas such as their strength, explosiveness and flexibility. Hidayat was a former wrestler himself and he noticed that there were limited wrestling opportunities for athletes to improve their skills. He therefore volunteered his own time to be a sparring partner for young wrestlers so that they would have more avenues and opportunities to train.

He also embarked on a coaching course in wrestling, so that he can better understand the needs of wrestlers through the combined lenses of sport science, strength development and skills training, to do more, further and wider to help the athletes under his care.

Sir, the Government's support for our national athletes is therefore holistic and comprehensive, rendered in an all-round approach. We invest in the system and we also invest in our individual athletes. Additionally, we directly support athletes from the moment they are identified as a budding talent, through their development and growth as an elite athlete and in many cases, even as they transition away from active competition.

We also work with key stakeholders in the sporting ecosystem. For instance, the National Sports Associations (NSAs) play a key role in this environment. They not only help to identify future champions, but also support and coordinate their training and competition schedules. Some actively seek sponsorships and endorsements to finance the career and aspirations of their athletes. Others provide performance-based incentives to them. The Government enjoys a collaborative and constructive relationship with many of the associations and we will continue to work with them and support them as they seek to achieve the best outcomes for our athletes.

There is also the Singapore Sports School (SSP), which I would like to mention. This was established in 2004. It offers an integrated sports and academic programme for Secondary and post-Secondary students. The Sports School offers its students comprehensive training in a variety of sports in an environment that also allows them to excel in their academic pursuits. The school has produced Team Singapore Olympians like Kean Yew, sprinter Calvin Kang and swimmer Tao Li.

Earlier this month, the school announced its students' results in last year's "O" and "N" levels and International Baccalaureate (IB) examinations. I was pleased to learn that the students did very well and congratulated the school for its fine work in nurturing student-athletes. It shows that we have a system that can deliver outstanding athletes with a fine academic record as well.

An example of a sportsman who has benefited from this multi-stakeholder, multi-faceted approach to supporting and developing athletes is Izaac Quek. He is currently one of the world's top-ranked youth table-tennis players. Izaac was first identified by the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) at age seven when he was in STTA's Bishan Zone Training Centre. He then enrolled at the Sports School and joined the national Junior Development Squad and Youth Training Squad, training under head coach Jing Junhong. Today, Izaac competes regularly on the world stage whilst at the same time, pursuing his Sports School studies and achieving excellent results in both of them.

Apart from these organisations, corporates and fellow Singaporeans can also play a role in supporting our national athletes. In 2017, the Government recognised this and launched the One Team Singapore Fund, which is a matching grant framework, to catalyse and encourage the support of private organisations and corporations and members of the public for our national athletes.

Donations to the One Team Singapore Fund are directed towards supporting athletes in areas such as enhancing their training environment and increasing their own competition opportunities. They benefit all athletes regardless of whether they win at competitions or not. So, the support is consistent and the framework ensures this. This provides athletes with certainty that they will be given support to achieve their best, regardless of the outcomes and not just have to rely on prize money.

To date, the Government has matched more than $15 million of donations from the public since 2017, of which in half that period, as Members would know, is the COVID-19 pandemic period. All of these funds go directly to benefiting the sporting infrastructure and to our athletes.

Mr Speaker, as I conclude, we know that Singaporeans cheer and celebrate our athletes achievements as a community of enthusiastic spectators, passionate sports fans and proud Singaporeans. There are very few things that can motivate, galvanise and inspire in the way sports can. Singaporeans were top of the podium on the world stage several times last year. Each occasion was an inspiration, bringing our community together, fostering a deep sense of national pride. By the same token, even in defeat, as our football Lions have shown us at the recent Suzuki Cup, sports can also inspire. We all rallied behind our team who fought hard, played with pride and even though they lost that match, they won our hearts. And this is what sports can do. Each moment of sporting success is special, uplifting and uniting us all.

The Government will therefore remain committed to sports in Singapore. We will keep our sports facilities, programmes and activities open and accessible to every Singaporean to promote a strong sporting culture and develop a pipeline of strong sporting talent. We will support every one of our national athletes with the assistance and resources they need to excel at the elite level and emerge as national champions and world-beaters on the best arenas and the world stages.

Mr Speaker, I thank the Minister for laying out in his response, the really comprehensive framework of support and the system that we have in place to support our national athletes. And I just like to acknowledge that this system has been built up and put in place over many years. And indeed, looking at the recent news coming out from a neighbouring country where the funding for their national sporting council was severely cut because of COVID-19 and with severe and direct impact to many of their national athletes, I think it lends perspective to the framework of support that we have in place for our athletes.

Nonetheless, I think there is always room to do more and in that respect, I have two supplementary questions for the Minister.

The first one, of course, inspired by Loh Kean Yew's historic win recently. I would like to ask if the Minister could share more information on how the Government plans to continue supporting world champions like Kean Yew to continue performing and excelling and winning at the highest levels.

The second question; more directly, I understand that Kean Yew did not win any prize money from his recent championship. But in the case of athletes who do win prize money, are they allowed to keep this money or are they expected to contribute some part of it to the Government?

I thank Mr Xie for the questions. I will deal with both. On the first question, I would have two or three points to make. First, it is imperative on us to continue to invest in the whole system. Because by doing so, providing holistic support and ensuring that the base is grown, then the possibility of more "Kean Yews", more "Shaynas", more "Aloysiuses", who all became world number one last year, will continue to be not just an aspiration, but a reality.

So, we have to expand our base. Build up better sporting infrastructure, talent spotting, talent development, nurturing, bringing them through the system and ensuring that these trailblazers, that Mr Xie has mentioned, will continue to inspire future generations of sportsmen for Singapore.

Our HPS famework, which I have taken some pains to lay out in some detail, allows us to insulate our athletes from the vicissitudes of reliance on just prize money – some high, some low, some competitions do not provide prize money – but provides a constant stream of support and ensures that is both targeted, focused as well as personalised for each individual athlete.

On the prize money, which Mr Xie has mentioned, this is up to the organisers of each competition. Some provide prize money. Others, like the recent World Championships, you play for prestige and of course, ranking points. Ranking points allow you to rise up in world rankings and allow you to be seeded subsequent competitions, thereby improving, enhancing chances of progressing further in the competition. All of these, whether prize money, or otherwise, the amount is determined by organisers. But I want to assure Mr Xie that the Government retains no part of this prize money. It is between the athlete and the relevant NSA. They deal with the prize money, they decide how that is best applied and the Government does not retain any portion of this.

On the contrary, regardless of whether they succeed at a competition or otherwise, as I have mentioned, the Government continues to support the athletes on his or her own journey, and also continues to support private donations, private sponsorships through the One Team Singapore Fund, which I mentioned earlier.

I thank the Minister. I have a supplementary question on safety net for the athletes. To compete at the top class, international level, our athletes will have to give their best in training and in competitions. They have to make many sacrifices including taking time-off from work and from their studies. And in many cases, it will come to "make it" or "break it" point as they go full-time for many years.

So, what are the safety nets arrangements that our country can offer after they retired from competitive sports? These national athletes would have taken personal sacrifices to pursue excellence in their sport and that will assure athletes and their parents if they decide to go full-time to pursue sporting excellence.

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: I thank Ms Poh. I agree with the sentiment that the Member has expressed. We do need to ensure that our athletes are single-minded, focused and put all their energies and devote their time and mental focus on training and eventually, also on competition.

And so, the spex programme that I have mentioned – from scholarship, to education, to business, to GLOW and TAG – they provide a range of support and ensure that it is curated. As I said earlier, each athlete is at a different station of his or her own life. Some are students and studying, some are trying to ensure that they get a place in the workforce, some came out of school and yet others want to retain an interest in the sport that they so deeply and passionately care about.

So, we do want to try and ensure that through all of these spex programmes, at different parts of the athletes' life, they are supported in a way which allows them to focus on their training.

For the safety net that Ms Poh mentioned, it is also important. So, to that extent, in some cases, athletes transition from a playing career, a competition career to a coaching career. I mentioned coach Kelvin and coach Henry Koh earlier. Those are two examples. They were top tier athletes in their time and they transitioned, and we allow them to transition into coaching. SportSG plays a role in this.

Broadly speaking, we also want to ensure that we take advantage of and leverage the expertise of these athletes. So, they can find a post-competition career in sports science, in nutrition, in training, in physiotherapy, in physiology. All of these are adjunct to the sporting career and we will take opportunities as much as we can to continue to develop these adjunct areas, so that the sportsmen, the athletes themselves, can continue to serve in that capacity and, at the same time, still find a career after their playing days are over.

We agree with Ms Poh that we have come quite far on the HPS framework. We have also looked at the environment and working with private stakeholders like in spexBusiness. But we agree that more can be done and we will certainly press on with ensuring that athletes remain single-minded, focused on training and ensuring that they devote as much of their time and energy possible to achieving their best outcome and not have to worry about ancillary matters. We will continue to work with all our stakeholders on this.