Considerations for Athletes who Peak Later in Sport Excellence Potential and Other Programmes

Assoc Prof Kenneth Goh asked the Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) how programmes such as the Sport Excellence Potential (spexPotential) account for sports where athletes peak later, including how long athletes can be supported before reaching senior representation; and (b) how the Ministry ensures such athletes are not disadvantaged by early progression benchmarks.

Sir, in high performance sports, every sport, and for that matter, every individual, is different, including the ages at which athletes peak their performance, and therefore, at what age and for how long they must be supported.

Because our aim is to make sure every athlete fulfils their fullest sporting potential, Sport Singapore’s High Performance Sport Institute (HPSI) designs our support for athletes based on their current performance and assessed potential, rather than solely age. And we do not place a limit on how long athletes can be supported as long as they meet performance and potential criteria.

Our Sport Excellence (spex) framework provides comprehensive support for athletes across different stages of their sporting journey. It seeks to retain athletes early in the developmental pathway and also, long enough for them to realise their aspirations and achieve their full potential.

The spexPotential programme, in particular, provides targeted financial and programmatic support to athletes with the potential to achieve gold medal success at the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games). It bridges our athletes’ journey towards the spexScholarship programme and sporting success at the Asian and world levels.

The spexPotential programme also supports athletes based on their developmental stage of their sport’s high performance pathway and it applies to athletes of all ages.

The framework of spex programmes – spexScholarship, spexPotential and spexCarding – also allows us to calibrate the level of support during various stages of an athlete’s sporting career. This means athletes will be supported throughout their sporting journey, even if their performance fluctuates from time to time.

The spex framework also supports late bloomers or athletes who switch sports. For example, we would be familiar with Theresa Goh, our Paralympian swimmer. She is also a late bloomer for para shooting. She took up the sport recently and won a gold and a silver at the recent ASEAN Para Games. As a swimmer, she was supported by spexCarding from when she was 14 years old and was awarded the spexScholarship when she was 27 years old. Now as a shooter, she is supported by spexCarding at 38 years old.

Once again, our aim is really to help every athlete achieve their fullest sporting potential. To do so, we work very closely with our partners, especially the National Sports Associations (NSAs) to develop our athletes. Together, we establish multiple pathways to account for differences in athletes’ development pathways and the characteristics of each sport, so that we can really support all our athletes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Acting Minister for his response. It is reassuring to know that within our sporting framework, that we are an inclusive system, not just in terms of athletes who are differently abled, but also across different ages as well.

I bring up this question, because at the recent SEA Games it was reported that one of the sprinters who won a gold medal was not on the spex programme, despite him having been a former SEA Games medalist, having also competed in the Asian Games and in the Commonwealth Games. And so, my understanding was that these performances, while exemplary and something that we celebrate, fell outside of the window for consideration in awarding the spexScholarships and the spex grants.

So, my question to the Acting Minister is whether the Ministry would consider extending the window for consideration of these spex grants, especially in relation to older athletes? And one reason for that is because as older athletes have different and more varied life circumstances. If you are talking about younger athletes, I think their life circumstances are more homogeneous – they go to school and they participate in sport. With older athletes, they work, they take care of family, they have a variety of responsibilities and that takes them off the high performance track. And so, in considering a broader window for these spex grants, I was wondering if that is something the Ministry will consider, to better hang on to our athletes and support them throughout their careers.

Mr Speaker, I thank the Member for the supplementary question. I believe I know the athlete in question and actually, he was supported by our spexCarding programme, and the spexGLOW programme, which allowed him to train full-time for a specific period of time.

I think to the Member's suggestion, for sure, because our focus is on helping every athlete achieve their fullest potential and therefore, we are definitely open to looking at the wider windows, different data points, but it is all with the view of how do we support our athletes better.