SINGAPORE — The Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) has revamped its national training centre (NTC) squad structure in an effort to raise swimming standards and make Singapore an international powerhouse in the sport.

NTC swimmers are now split into three groups — a new category of distance swimmers who focus on the 800m and 1,500m events, a senior group for athletes aged above 18 years old, and a third team of swimmers below 18.

There are now seven swimmers in the distance group: Chloe Wang, Michael Yong, Rachel Tseng, Bryant Low, Glen Lim, Jonathan Tan, Timothy Tan.

According to SSA’s new high-performance manager Sonya Porter who will work with national head coach Sergio Lopez, the distance swimmers will train separately and be given specialised attention and training sets.

Sonya Porter elaborates on her role at SSA on Oct 12, 2015. Video: Amanpreet Singh

The 46-year-old Australian, whose appointment was announced by the SSA last Friday (Oct 9), said today that this move is aimed at addressing the deficit of swimmers in distance events as opposed to sprint events, which tend to be seen as more glamorous events at the Olympics and World Championships.

“Sergio and I have always wanted to work together. We caught up at a meet in May, and he started talking about what was going on here, and he thought I would complement,” said Porter today. “There is a pool of talent here, and you are going to see a few athletes surprise us at the international level, (but) one of the areas of deficit is distance. It needs to be addressed. In aquatics, you want to cover all variables. The 400m, 800m and 1,500m are often competed at the Olympics. If there is a focus on these events, you have more athletes competing in them as opposed to their doing only sprints.”

Porter, who joined the SSA on Oct 1 on a two-year contract, brings over 20 years of coaching experience, including at the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Division 1 level.

According to Lopez, Porter’s experience in coaching long-distance swimmers who have excelled at the NCAA and the Olympics will be particularly useful.

“She will help me to plan a good season because she has coached good distance swimmers at a high Olympic level,” said Lopez.

“(It is not because) we are doing well at sprints. How many finalists do we have at the Olympics, World Champs, or Asian Games? It is just that we want to build this group up alongside the rest.”

Lopez added that the forming of a NTC junior squad is a step towards rebuilding a national junior training team. “There are different things we are trying to plan for the long-term with a junior team. I know we had a junior team cancelled last year but last year the ages (in the team) were about 12 or 13 years old,” said Lopez, referring to the cessation of the Junior National Development Squad last December. “We are now trying to think about the junior team as 18 and under, like (at) FINA (World) Juniors (level). We want to look at this team as being able to compete well in the future, like at 2020 (Tokyo Olympics).”