The New Paper features two up-and-coming swimmers who aspire to be like Joseph Schooling
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That’s the spirit of Glen, 14, who holds three U-14 national marks 
On that historic morning, National Training Centre swimmer Glen Lim was a bundle of nerves before Joseph Schooling’s Olympic men’s 100m butterfly final in Rio.
Watching the race with his teammates at the OCBC Aquatic Centre last Saturday, the 14-year-old Raffles Institution student watched intently as the likes of Michael Phelps, Chad le Clos and Laszlo Cseh took their places at the starting blocks alongside Schooling.
“It was very intense because Joseph was swimming against the other legends,” Glen recalled after his training session at the Sports Hub pool yesterday.
Exactly 50.39 seconds later, tension turned to pride for Glen as the 21-year-old Schooling made history by winning the Republic’s first-ever Olympic gold medal.
While the achievement is personal, the landmark victory has also sent out a message to junior swimmers like Glen in Singapore.
That a Singaporean can do well at the highest level, but you must believe in yourself that you belong there.
“His win proved that Singaporean swimmers have the potential to win medals at the Olympics,” Glen said.
“If Joseph can do it, then so can I, and everyone else.”
Glen is among a clutch of talented swimmers coming through the Singapore Swimming Association’s (SSA) developmental pipeline, along with the likes of Jonathan Tan, Zachary Ian Tan, and Maximillian Ang.
Glen has had a stellar year so far – he rewrote Under-14 national records in the boys’ 400m, 800, and 1,500m free events earlier this year.
Along with older teammates such as Dylan Koo, Francis Fong, Hoong En Qi, Quah Jing Wen, these youngsters represent the next wave of swimmers which the SSA is developing for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and beyond.
The soft-spoken teenager is part of a 27-strong Junior Pan Pacific Championships team that left for the United States this morning.
The meet, to take place in Hawaii from Aug 24-28, is the youth version of the senior international competition that is well participated by swimming powerhouse countries such as the US, Japan and Australia.
The 2016 edition of the Junior Pan Pacs will feature top juniors such as Australia’s Minna Atherton and American Reece Whitley.
Glen will compete in the 400m and 1,500m free, and the 400m individual medley. He is also in line for the relays.
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WORRIES
He said: “I am actually feeling a little scared because other people are faster than me, but I will try my best.
“My coaches have told me to swim my own race… I must believe in myself and not be afraid of other people.
“They (the top swimmers) are like us; they have been through the same thing as I will, where they swam against faster people.”
Beyond the Junior Pan Pacs, Glen aims to break into the South-east Asia Games team for Kuala Lumpur next year, and is gunning for Teo Zhen Ren’s national 1,500m free mark.
His personal best in the event now, the national U-14 mark, stands at 16min 36.38sec, while Teo’s record stands at 15:43.08.
“I am thinking if I could break it next year or when I am 16. It would be good for me because I know I have been swimming hard,” he said.
Qualifying for, and doing well at, the highest level will be his ultimate dream.
Glen said: “I would like to make it to the Olympics and qualify for the final of the 1,500m free.”
AsiaOne
She’s got spirit
Despite early setbacks, Ching Hwee, 13, is on track for next year’s SEA Games
msazali@sph.com.sg
She turned 13 just last month.
But even before she blew out the candles on her birthday cake, swimmer Gan Ching Hwee had already achieved a milestone in the pool.
At the National Swimming Championships in June, the Methodist Girls’ School student clocked 5min 01.06sec in the 400m individual medley.
The time is just one and a half seconds off the bronze-medal winning mark (4:59.52) at last year’s South-east Asia Games.
Little wonder then, that Ching Hwee, who stands at 1.62m and weighs 48kg, is being tipped for big things.
Said her coach at the Chinese Swimming Club (CSC), Eugene Chia: “She’s small-sized but feisty… Like a chilli padi. She has a strong spirit.
“Right now, she has an injured shoulder so in training, I tell her to tell me if she can’t take it… But she still keeps pushing herself.”
What is even more remarkable is that the 400m IM is not Ching Hwee’s pet event.
She prefers swimming long-distance freestyle – 400m or 800m – and swept a 200m and 400m freestyle double in the ‘C’ Division at the National Inter-School Swimming Championships in April.
That performance earned her a ticket to Thailand last month, to represent Singapore at the ASEAN School Games.
Despite competing against swimmers who were up to four years her senior, Ching Hwee managed to win a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle event. She also bagged another two bronzes in two relay events
But the teenager herself will tell you it is not all natural talent.
She started swimming at the CSC at four years old, but did not win any competitive race until she was 12.
She even considered stopping swimming because of her failures early on, but Chia encouraged her to keep the faith.
“Now as she slowly comes of age in secondary school, where there are longer distance events she is better in, she can see she’s able to push through,” said the former national assistant coach.
Ching Hwee’s days revolve around swimming.
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DAILY ROUTINE
Twice a week, she wakes up at 5am to train in the morning, then goes to school a little later than her peers – she has permission to.
When school ends, she heads straight back home in Marine Parade, does some homework and then heads to the CSC for her daily evening training sessions.
After that, it’s back home for dinner, more revision, and then sleep.
It is a testing daily routine, but one that Ching Hwee loves.
“If I didnt pick up swimming, I have no idea what else I’d do,” she said, with a toothy grin.
“Swimming has allowed me to learn a few life lessons, such as success doesn’t come without hard work, and you have to put in effort to see results.
“I’ve had some setbacks and failures in the past, like not meeting goals I had set for myself.
“But I take it as motivation to allow me to learn from my mistakes and swim faster the next time round.”
Her mother, Lee Chui Leng, told TNP: “She’s very disciplined. We’re fortunate she takes charge of her own schoolwork and swimming.
“For example, she sets her own alarm to go to training, gets up, gets breakfast, does schoolwork… All without us having to push her. She’s a very self-motivated child.”
If Ching Hwee needs extra motivation in the pool, she got it last weekend.
She was among 70 young swimmers and their parents who congregated at CSC to watch Joseph Schooling power to an historic first Olympic gold medal for Singapore, in the 100m butterfly final in Rio.
Her eyes lit up when she recalled watching Schooling’s feat.
“Yah, he was leading almost all the way!” she exclaimed.
“Everyone was cheering and when he touched the wall, we all just screamed… I was so proud of him and what he achieved.
“It has definitely motivated me to keep pursuing my dreams as a swimming athlete. Now, everyone in Singapore is talking about swimming.”
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PROGRESS
Chia said that the club’s original target for Ching Hwee was to make the cut for the 2019 SEA Games but, after she clocked promising times recently, the next biennial in Kuala Lumpur in a year’s time is a possibility.
Said the coach: “For her right now, it’s just a matter of progressing, from the SEA Games, to Asian Games, and the Commonwealth Games.
“She has told me she wants to go to the Olympics.
“Definitely, with what she’s displaying at this age, if guided properly, she stands a good chance of making Olympic cuts in the future.”
SSA to unveil ‘systemic’ changes
The local swimming scene is due for “systemic” changes in the next five years to ensure that Singapore can produce world-class swimmers.
These changes will address “gaps” in both the development of swimmers and coaches here, Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) vice-president (swimming) Joscelin Yeo told The New Paper earlier this week.
“We have seen gaps in terms of our long-term athlete development plan, as well as our long-term coaching plan, and they need to be addressed,” said the 37-year-old former national swimmer.
“If they are not addressed, then we will lose a lot of swimmers somewhere in the middle, between learn-to-swim programmes and the high performance component; we lose a big chunk of them.
“Not everyone has the privilege of going overseas so there has to be a local solution, and I think that’s something that we are hoping to provide.”
NEW SET-UP
The association is set to unveil its plans soon, and also to announce the replacement for national swim coach Sergio Lopez, with his current assistant Gary Tan highly tipped for the job.
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PLANS
Earlier this year, the SSA announced that it has five-year plans for each of its five disciplines – swimming, water polo, diving, synchronised swimming and open water swimming – to become world class.
The association is also working with the National Youth Sports Institute in grooming talented young swimmers, with former Swimfast Aquatic Club coach Leonard Tan appointed the youth institute’s head swim coach.
Former national swimming captain Tan said: “I am feeling excited about the pipeline of talent coming through in swimming, but we have to make sure that they progress systematically and their training is carefully monitored.
TIES
“But, while plans are important, we must also not forget to build and maintain good coach-swimmer relationships,and help them develop as people as well.”
Many people and businesses have been enthusiastic about Schooling’s historic feat, with full-page advertisements taken in newspapers to congratulate him, and fast food set meals named after him or his Olympic timing.
Hordes of people have also turned up over the past week in the swimmer’s public performances, in an unprecedented celebration of a individual athlete in this nation.
Yeo, a four-time Olympian, hopes all these will translate into more support for the association’s programmes in the coming years.
She said: “I just hope it inspires people to believe that we can have a local sportsman who can really be at the top and win.
“I hope that we have more buy in from whoever it might be to help us push forward our next phase of development and creating a system where we can deliberately and purposefully identify talent.
“We don’t want to just leave it to chance.”
– LIM SAY HENG
This article was first published on Aug 21, 2016.
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