HAVING SOMEBODY TO CHASE
Competition is intense in US college sports. And young Singaporeans believe that being immersed in the NCAA environment can help raise their game.
“In the Ivy League itself, it’s competitive and there are people pushing me,” said Kam, who holds the Singapore U18, U20, U23 and indoor high jump national records.
“We don’t just compete within the Ivy League, we also travel to other schools. For example last year, we went to the Naval Academy, we had a meet with the Navy and a few other schools, and there were at least a couple of people that could jump above 2.05m … And that was something Singapore didn’t have.”
At other meets with the “Power Five” schools – schools in the five most prominent and highest-earning athletic conferences in NCAA Division I college football – high jumpers are registering scores of 2.15 to 2.20m, said Kam.
“It’s very, very good competition that you have access to on a weekly or monthly basis when the season starts,” he added.
At Virginia Tech, Lopez said his team had 12 swimmers at the World Championships and will potentially have 15 at next year’s Paris Olympics.
Competition helps to stretch athletes’ limits, added swimmer Tan, who met the Olympics “A” cut in the 50m freestyle earlier this year.
“Swimming with people who are much faster than you will always push you more and motivate you to train harder.
“It’s good exposure for me because I’m swimming with a lot of good college swimmers, and Singapore doesn’t have a lot of breaststrokers,” added fellow swimmer Chue.
“For once, I don’t feel like I’m alone, I actually have someone that I can chase. So it’s a good thing.”
For Leow, it was an “eye-opening experience” to understand the level he was at.
“As an athlete, nobody loves to lose or be in the bottom few. In fact for me, I knew what I was committing to – a college programme that is one of the top in the nation – and I knew what I wanted,” said Leow, who was ranked as high as 43rd in the world amateur standings.
“Instead of having a negative mindset about my first year – I was struggling and barely making the lineups and all that stuff – it was a motivation of what it takes to be up there with the top-ranked players on my team, as well as compete against fellow top international players.”
To be the best in the world, one needs to be surrounded by the best in the world, said Schooling, who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.
“Being able to go shoulder to shoulder every single day with them gives you that confidence that if this guy is winning a gold medal, he’s on the podium, he’s breaking world records and I’m hanging with him in practice every single day – that gives you a huge confidence booster,” he added.
Realising that they are not necessarily the best athlete should be a “driving force”, added Singapore Aquatics’ Porter.
“They’re not necessarily going to go in as the best athlete where they are in Singapore and that should be a driving force for them,” she added.
“It should hit them in the gut where it becomes that thing to want to get to be the best athlete in that environment,”
Given the level of competition, it is vital that athletes do their own research in selecting a suitable school, said Singapore Golf Association general manager Joshua Ho.
“The selection of the team they go into is very important because you don’t want to be going to a system where you cannot make the team at all,” said Ho, a former national golfer.
“If you consistently can’t make it on the team, you basically don’t get the exposure that you intend to go there for. At the same time, you don’t want to be by far the best player there because then no one’s really pushing you to get better.”
