THIRD TIME CHARM

By Naveen Kanagalingam

Picture by Aundry Gan in Vientiane

While athletes in Team Singapore's top sports like Shooting, Table Tennis and Swimming get the limelight, their teammates in other sports have also been hard at work at the SEA Games here in Vientiane. We track the efforts of our athletes in "unsung" sports like Karate and Taekwondo.

Significant Silver

After having clinched a bronze medal in each of her last two SEA Games outings, Karate representative Ng Pei Yi (pictured, left) chopped her way to a silver medal last week here in Laos. She managed straight victories through the quarter-finals and semi-finals but was beaten by Vietnam’s Nguyen Hoang Ngan in the finals. Her medal is significant. It marks the first time that Singapore has been awarded silver in the Individual Women's Kata category at the SEA Games.

Good Start

Assessing the results, Pei Yi’s father Richard Ng Sing Hua, Vice President of the Singapore Karate-Do Federation, said, “Singapore can do well in this sport and Pei Yi winning a silver medal is a good start.”  Her coach David Thong noted, “Standards have improved and our younger athletes are starting to show their mettle. We’re still trying to give them as much exposure as possible to help them progress.” He added, “There is a lot of potential for the growth of Karate as a sport in Singapore." Apart from Pei Yi's silver, other medals from athletes in "unsung" sports include bronzes by Tay Qingyuan (Karate), Dinah Chan (Cycling) and Jacqueline Quek & Jason Tan (Taekwondo).