Recognising the inaugural batch of Sports Excellence Scholars

Mr Teo Ser Luck, MOS for Trade and Industry
Mr Lim Teck Yin, CEO of Singapore Sports Council
Members of the High Performance Sports Steering Committee,
Team Singapore athletes,

Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,

1. I am happy to join you this evening, a significant day for Singapore Sports as we formally recognise our first batch of Sports Excellence Scholars, or spexScholars in short. 
   

2. To all our spexScholars, congratulations on receiving this top national scholarship for sport. You are the best of Team Singapore and all of you here today come from a wide range of sports, including disability sports. And we are happy to give you this scholarship which recognises your achievements so far, and importantly, your potential to go even further. The scholarship is our commitment to you, to ensure that you get the full support and backing of the country, to compete at the national, regional, international and Olympic levels.
   

3. Achievement in high performance sports is a combination of talent and preparation. Innate talent and having the right physical attributes for the sport matters. At the same time, all talented athletes can only succeed through many hours of preparation and training. Some experts say that you need to train 10,000 hours. I am not sure if it is a magic figure but recently, somebody told me a story about Brazillian footballers. Why is it that Brazil can produce so many talented footballers? Is it because they have been endowed with better footballing ability than people from other countries? You have different theories and someone researched and found that Brazillian footballers would have played more than 10,000 hours of football by the time they are about age 13 – because they play on the street so often, whereas in most other countries, the children would have probably achieved 10,000 hours only when they are in their mid or late 20s. So from that wide base of young people playing so much football, it is only natural that they can take up more talented footballers. So it's not just about talent, talent is important but it is also about hard work. And it's not just about clocking up the hours under your belt, you also have to train smart, and you have to train with the right support from sport science and sports medicine. So that is a lot of investment in research, in time and in energy.
   

4. We recognise the commitment and many sacrifices that you need to make in order to excel in sports. Therefore, with the spexScholarship, we hope to give all of you peace of mind to train through the stipends that you will be getting every month, peace of mind to train full-time so that you don't have to worry about career and sports at the same time. More importantly, with the new High Performance Sports System, you can look forward to holistic support as you gear up for regional and global competitions. This includes the best sports science resources from the Singapore Sports Institute (SSI), to enable you to train effectively. 
   

5. At the same time, as part of the High Performance Sports System, we will be doing more to look after educational and career pursuits. In particular, the spex Education Scheme and spex Career Scheme will help our athletes benefit from education or career support through our partnerships with institutes of higher learning as well as with companies that are prepared to support our athletes. And we have been growing this base of partnerships. We will continue to ensure that the SSI's range of sports science and medicine services will also continue to be available to you even as you transit from full-time training to work and training at the same time.

6. We will continue to improve our High Performance Sports System over the years, and to award more spexScholarships to deserving sportsmen and sportswomen like all of our athletes here. We have set aside $40 million set aside over the next five years for this purpose – the highest amount we have invested so far in our sports history. It is our commitment and faith our athletes, as they compete among the best, to do our nation proud, and to fly Singapore's flag high. 
   

7. From among the applicants for this year's spexScholarship we have also identified a group of 26 very promising athletes. They have the potential to become scholarship recipients in future. And we have decided to select them because we recognise their potential and we will continue to track their progress. Under the High Performance Sports System, we will also provide to these 26 athletes targeted support for overseas training camps, competitions and equipment. So we hope that this will help these identified athletes to train hard and do their best to build up their competition profile. And we will be opening up the call for new spexScholarship applications in April next year. So the 26 athletes whom we have identified and are providing targeted support for, I hope you will apply for the scholarship next year and I hope that many others will also apply because we will continue to support high performing athletes with good support so that they will do well for our country.
   

8. As our athletes progress, there will be pressure and expectations on you to deliver. The journey will be challenging, I am sure, with its share of ups and downs. But if you have the potential to win and the determination to succeed, then I assure you that we will back you up all the way. At the end of the day, it is not just about your sporting talent but also your attitude and mindset – your commitment and dedication to train hard, excel, and to continually improve yourself. These are the attributes that will enable you to overcome all obstacles, maximise your potential, and do Singapore proud.
   

9. At this juncture, let me also take the opportunity to acknowledge the many supporters behind our athletes – your family members, friends and loved ones many of whom are here today. All of you play a crucial role in this entire system of High Performance Sports which we are setting up. The Singapore Sports Council (SSC) can have resources to provide grants and stipends. We can have the best sports science research for our athletes but we cannot replace the role of parents and family members - that is not substitutable with money. The role that you play is crucial, and the support and emotional encouragement that you give to the athletes is of utmost importance. I know all of you must be proud of the achievements of our spexScholars, and I am sure they are also very appreciative of all the support that you have given to them over the years.
   

10. Finally, l would like to congratulate once again our inaugural batch of spexScholars, and I wish all of you the very best in your sporting journeys ahead. Thank you very much.