Aquatics body must maintain the momentum

SINGAPORE — On the back of a hotly contested election battle at the Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) last year, in which Lee Kok Choy won the post of president by just one vote (17-16), the newly elected chief acknowledged the executive committee had their work cut out in their two-year term.

And the one-year report card has been a positive one for the team, who presented their progress and strategy plans for the new financial year at the association’s annual general meeting at the OCBC Aquatic Centre last night.

FY2014/2015 was an eventful year for the SSA — which received some S$5 million in grants from Sport Singapore — as the association moved from Toa Payoh to the OCBC Aquatic Centre, on top of organising marquee international events such as the 2014 FINA World Cup. One of the SSA’s biggest coups came with the appointment of Sergio Lopez — he was Joseph Schooling’s previous coach in the United States — as its national head coach.

Top on the list of performers among the four disciplines — swimming, synchronised swimming, diving and water polo — was the national swim team, with Schooling clinching historic firsts at the Commonwealth and Asian Games with silver and gold respectively in the men’s 100m butterfly.

The 2014/2015 season also saw the SSA’s athletes across its four disciplines post their best-ever SEA Games haul of 26 gold, 17 silver, 11 bronze medals at the biennial event held earlier this month, with swimming eclipsing the previous record of 21 gold won at the 1973 SEAP Games.

But with the Republic set to host the 5th FINA World Junior Championships in August, and the swimmers taking on the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro next year, Lee stressed the association and its athletes cannot afford to lose the momentum.

“It was a very busy year, and we made a lot of improvements, worked on our capabilities and performed well at international competitions,” said Lee. “We unified the four disciplines and operated as one team ... the results speak for themselves. That progress was most visible with the results at the SEA Games where we set records we had never achieved before across all four disciplines.

“We still want to work together with our affiliates as they are the main contributor to our success. We want to continue to work on upgrading our high performance management capabilities and build on this progress.”

“We definitely want to move higher up the food chain, and we want to be competitive at the Asian, Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games. We don’t want to be a flash in the pan, and we want to build the capability for the long run.”

Expanding and developing the base of athletes for the sport is crucial, particularly for disciplines such as synchronised swimming and diving, and SSA will continue engaging the Ministry of Education on getting synchronised swimming and diving included as a co-curricular activity in the schools.

While the disbandment of the Junior National Development Squad last year caused some unhappiness among parents, SSA secretary general Oon Jin Teik acknowledged they had to “bite the bullet” over the issue.

Added Oon yesterday: “For me it is about continuing this system and ensuring it works. The second year is to go back to the fundamentals — coaches, technical officials, and support for the clubs. The other angle is teamwork, team spirit among the fraternity. And we must pool as one. Singapore is too small to allow polarisation. What we want is a team working for one purpose, which is the national flag.”