SINGAPORE — National swimmer Quah Zheng Wen’s dream of winning a medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games has been handed a boost after the 19-year-old was granted an extension of his National Service (NS) deferment by the Ministry of Defence (Mindef).

Mindef announced yesterday that the Armed Forces Council had approved Quah’s application for extended deferment this month, noting that “deferment may be granted to exceptional cases of individual sportsmen who are assessed to be potential medal winners at international competitions like the Olympic Games”.

Quah, who was delighted to hear the good news yesterday, said: “I would like to thank Mindef, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY), Sport Singapore (SportSG), the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) and the Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) for their continuous support.

“I’m deeply appreciative of the opportunity to be able to train full-time and dedicate myself to doing my best and making our nation proud. With the extended deferment, it gives me the peace of mind to continue to train hard and work towards my goal of Tokyo 2020. Since the Rio 2016 Olympics, I’ve been very touched by the support received and would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support.”

Quah declined to reveal the plans for his next four-year Olympic campaign. However, he is believed to be considering two options. The first would be to remain in Singapore and continue training with the National Training Centre (NTC) squad under current national assistant coach Gary Tan and high-performance manager Sonya Porter.

The alternative would be to follow in the footsteps of national team-mate and newly minted Olympic champion Joseph Schooling, who is a University of Texas student, and head abroad to train and study in an overseas university.

Quah is understood to be weighing up the possibility of joining former Singapore swimming head coach Sergio Lopez at the Auburn University in the United States, with the two having developed a strong bond over the course of the Spaniard’s two-year stint in the Republic.

When asked, coach Tan said the SSA would meet Quah over the next few days to discuss the best course of action for the young swimmer.

“We will be sitting down with Zheng Wen properly following this announcement to discuss our plans,” Tan told TODAY. “We need to discuss with various parties to make sure that we have the best system and support in place for Zheng Wen, who has proved with his performances that he has so much potential to go even further.”

Quah’s deferment comes just a month after Schooling was granted fresh deferment till the 2020 Games. Quah was initially granted long-term deferment in July last year to train for the 2016 Rio Games, where he qualified for the semi-finals of the men’s 100m and 200m butterfly with new personal best (PB) times of 52.08sec and 1min 56.01sec respectively. He finished 15th and 10th overall, respectively.

Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen said in his Facebook post yesterday: “For the first time ever, we now have two Olympics medal prospects — Zheng Wen and Joseph Schooling — who are exceptional sportsmen and meet all the existing criteria for deferment. This speaks well of our sporting talent in our younger generation. I hope their achievements will encourage many more sportsmen and women to excel.

“I spoke to Zheng Wen and his father. I thanked them for their commitment to excellence, the many hours of training Zheng Wen has put in and many more needed for the next four years, for him to win in Tokyo 2020. I wished Zheng Wen the very best in his training and his ambition to win glory for Singapore.”

SSA secretary-general Oon Jin Teik said in a statement yesterday: “We will be working closely with ... the relevant parties to develop the future plans to help Zheng Wen achieve his goals for Tokyo 2020.” ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LOW LIN FHOONG