Singapore Sports School 22nd Awards Night

Chairman and Principal of Singapore Sports School

Staff, student-athletes, and parents

Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

1.    Good evening, everyone.

2.    Tonight, we celebrate the efforts and achievements of all our student-athletes.

a.   To all the award recipients, congratulations!

b.   You have worked incredibly hard; you made many sacrifices, and you did well in both your sports as well as your studies.

c.    We are proud of your dedication, discipline and achievements.

d.   Congratulations once again! And one more time, can we have a big round of applause for them.

Celebrate Sporting Excellence of Our Athletes & Sports School

3.    Our athletes are at the heart of everything that we do.

a.   Their dedication, pursuit of excellence, and resilience represents the very best in all of us.

b.   And they inspire us. In both victory and defeat, they bring our nation together.

c.    They show us that with hard work and perseverance, everything is possible.

d.   And these are qualities that our athletes will carry with them throughout their lives, enriching our nation.

e.   And we want to keep supporting all our athletes in your sporting and lifelong career, so that you can be successful both on and off the field.

4.    The Singapore Sports School plays a key role in our nation’s sporting dreams and aspirations. 

5.    Since its establishment more than 20 years ago, it has become a strong talent pipeline for our national youth and national teams in our high performance system.

a.   The Sports School has produced 19 Olympians and 17 World Champions.

b.   Nearly one-in-four of our carded athletes are from the Sports School. And if we include the alumni, that number becomes one-in-two.

c.    SSP’s athletes and alumni also make up one in three spexScholars, and two in five of our spexPotential athletes.

6.    In our recent SEA Games where Team Singapore achieved a record of 202 medals won, about a third were won by Singapore Sports School student-athletes.

a.   Izaac Quek retained his three gold medals again in table tennis.

b.   Julia Yeo also won gold and broke the SEA Games record in the 4x100m medley – not bad considering she was swimming in somebody else’s goggles and swimsuit.

7.    And its alumni continue to do well.

a.   Andrew Medina won the first medal in Men’s Long Jump since 1983.

b.   Amanda Lim continued to be the fastest woman in South East Asia, winning her seventh gold with a new Games record in the 50m freestyle.

Making Sports a Viable Career

8.    Off the field, we want to make sure that our athletes do equally well. Through Singapore Sports School’s athlete-centric approach to education, our student-athletes and teachers’ hard work, we have achieved good results.

a.   Over the past 3 years, 75% of our IBDP student-athletes represented Singapore at the national youth or senior levels, and 70% achieved 38 points or more, and this is well in advance of the global average.

b.   Similarly, 90% of our polytechnic student-athletes earned national team selection, with 65% attaining a GPA of 3.0 or higher.

9.    To make sports a viable career, we design our Sport Excellence programmes to provide support that is both bespoke and holistic to our athletes, catering to different stages of their sporting career.

a.   Today, we support more than 1,500 carded athletes across 55 sports—that’s a five-fold increase from 272 athletes across 14 sports when SPEX began in 1993.

b.   For talented athletes committed to training full-time, our spexScholarship and spexPotential programmes offer you enhanced financial and programmatic support.

10.         And we also introduced CPF top-ups for spexScholars last year.

a.   This ensures our athletes build their financial foundation just like any working professional in Singapore—and that prepares them for homeownership, healthcare needs, and retirement.

b.   That way, we help them focus on achieving their sporting goals.

11.         We also launched the spexEducation Undergraduate Scholarship last year.

a.   The scholarship supports athletes for further education, whether during or after their sporting career.

b.   Among our first recipients was Wushu exponent Zeanne Law. After taking a gap year to prepare for the World Wushu Championships and SEA ames, Zeanne will resume her studies this year, pursuing a bachelor's degree in speech and language therapy at the Singapore Institute of Technology.

12.         Last year, the Singapore Sports School signed MOUs with all six autonomous universities to establish athlete-friendly practices, so that our athletes can better juggle their sporting and academic pursuits.

a.   Through these MOUs, our AUs offer carded athletes priority module selection and exam deferrals to accommodate their training and competition schedules, among other measures to support them.

13.         And our vision extends beyond supporting individual athletes but to also develop the entire sporting ecosystem.

a.   By growing the sports industry, we create diverse career pathways in areas like sport science, administration, and coaching. This provides meaningful career opportunities for our athletes.

b.   Take former SSP alumni and Olympian Jessica Tan. As a spexEducation Undergraduate scholar, she is furthering her studies in Sport Management and Coaching in the UK.

c.    Upon her return, she will contribute to sports in a different capacity, working alongside Sport Singapore to nurture the next generation of sporting talents

14.         That is why I am very pleased that Temasek Polytechnic will be offering places to SSP’s student-athletes across the five Applied Science diplomas.

a.   This is a significant milestone because this is the first STEM-based diploma programme for our student-athletes.

b.   The first intake will start next year and provide student-athletes with more options to meet their career aspirations.

Conclusion

15.         At this point, I would also like to acknowledge the key people who have make our athletes’ success possible.

a.   First, their parents – you are the bedrock of our athletes’ achievements, you provide unwavering support and you make sacrifices to nurture your children's sporting dreams.

b.   Second, all our dedicated educators, staff and coaches at Singapore Sports School. You serve as mentors, teachers and cheerleaders day in and day out, you see our students through their highest highs and you see them through their lowest lows. And no matter what happens, you show that you are always there for them.

c.    Third, our partners. You enable our young athletes' dreams to flourish and empower them to turn aspirations into achievements.

16.         So let us all continue to support our athletes and do everything we can to help them become the best versions of themselves.

17.         To all our athletes in the auditorium, remember that whether you win or lose, we will always be behind you. So go out there and chase that rainbow.

18.         One Team, One Dream, One Singapore.

19.         Thank you.