The journey to sporting success begins with a single person’s dream but it is a journey that involves many.
At the Celebrate What’s Right event, members of the sporting ecosystem gathered to reaffirm their support for the journey as well as welcoming 17 new athletes to the SPEX Scholarship programme this year.
MINISTER GRACE FU HONOURING THE OCCASION
Honouring the occasion was guest of honour Grace Fu, Minister for culture, community and youth, who said “It is 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, corporations and schools, working together to support our national athletes as One Team Singapore.”
She added “In this long journey of athlete development, the national sports associations play a crucial role. I would like to urge them 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.”
Minister Fu presented the awards to the 17 athletes at the event. The SPEX Scholarship programme now has 78 athletes across 24 sports consisting of the new, existing and 19 athletes whose scholarships have been renewed.
RICHARD SEOW CONGRATULATES THE NEW SCHOLARS
Congratulating the SPEX Scholarship recepients was Richard Seow, the Chairman of Sport Singapore, who said “my congratulations to the new SPEX Scholars who have shown their talent, ambition and commitment to be selected for the coveted SPEX scholarship. Their early success and drive have shown their potential to bring sporting success to Singapore.”
He added “Now as SPEX Scholars, the level of support will increase to help motivate them to take on the challenge to succeed at the highest level of their sport and in doing so, to rally the community and inspire our nation.”
Jowen Lim and Ho Lin Ying from Wushu and Sneha Sivakumar from Squash are some of the SPEX Scholarship recepients.
Said Sneha, who came third for the Asian Junior Team Championship 2017, “I am honoured and grateful to have been given the Scholarship. With more structured support from SportSG, I hope I will be able to improve exponentially and have some major breakthroughs.”
Canoeist Soh Sze Ying and cyclists Calvin Sim and Luo YiWei are also SPEX Scholarship recepients and they will be taking a break from their full time jobs to see how far they can push themselves on the international stage.
Said Calvin, “I am truly honoured and grateful to receive the SPEX Scholarship. With the holistic support from the Singapore Sports Institute, I am able to continue my pursuit of excellence in my sporting journey and I hope to achieve more success in the Asian and International competitions.”
Also grateful at being awarded the SPEX scholarship was Mohamed Ismail, a bowler. He said, “I will be working closely with my Coach and with good communication and teamwork to be even more disciplined, driven and focused on achieving better results from previous tournaments, I hope to be one of the best bowlers in the world for my respective category.”
SEOW IS ENCOURAGED BY THE PROGRAMME’S ONGOING SUCCESS
Seow is encouraged by the success of the SPEX scholarship programme which saw 91 nominations across 2 sports and saw 37 applications shortlisted from 15 sports prior to arriving at the final list.
Said Seow, “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 is a positive indicator of advances in our Higher 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.”
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