SINGAPORE — Having established itself as the region’s undisputed kingpin of swimming at last year’s SEA Games, the Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) has now turned its attention to its next main goal: Turning Singapore into a “world-class swimming nation” by the 2020 Olympic Games.

At the last South-east Asian Games, while Singapore comfortably led the swim tally with 42 medals — including 23 gold — its swimmers have yet to make their presence felt at the Asian and world levels, with just Joseph Schooling and Quah Zheng Wen having qualified for the coming Rio Olympics so far. But the SSA aims to redress this by the time of the Tokyo Games, say officials.

The signs are promising. While only Schooling and Quah have made the “A” timing for the Rio Olympics so far, eight other swimmers have joined them in reaching the “B” cut — the highest number in SSA history. Swimmers who clock “A” timings are guaranteed places in that particular event at the Games, while those with “B” timings will be ranked and allocated a certain number of places per event.

Although having more qualifiers for Rio remains a short-term target for the SSA, its eventual aim is to develop a sustainable swimming ecosystem capable of consistently churning out top-level swimmers. The plan is for this goal to come to fruition in four years’ time, when it intends to send a sizeable contingent to the Tokyo Games.

“While the pool of talented swimmers in Singapore is smaller than some countries like China, we strongly believe that we have, and always had, exceptional talent,” said SSA secretary-general Oon Jin Teik.

“Just being ‘confident or optimistic’ about medalling at any Olympics is not a strategy. Achieving world-class results is centred around creating a high-performance ecosystem with all the ingredients for the pool of talented swimmers to consistently be the best in class.”

An improved developmental pipeline

The 5th FINA World Junior Championships on home soil last year proved a successful outing for the 22-strong Singapore team — four new national age-group records were set, an Olympic “B” timing was achieved, and history made as Francis Fong, Samuel Khoo, Dylan Koo and Darren Lim made the men’s 4x100m medley relay final.

National assistant coach Gary Tan said the good work done by the various swim clubs here is one reason for the increase in the number of promising youth talents coming through the ranks. “The clubs, over the last couple of years, have done good foundational work in developing young swimmers,” Tan told TODAY.

“Hopefully by having that structure, the National Training Centre (NTC), and the new National Youth Sports Institute (NYSI) coming up, things will start to look better for the whole swim community.”

Tan added that with support from the Singapore Sports Institute (SSI), more of these young swimmers’ psychological and physiological needs were being taken care of, ensuring that they will not leave the sport.

Emphasis on teamwork

Another SSA strategy is to have more swimmers training in the relay events. This serves two purposes: To cultivate a “Team Singapore-first” mindset, while also giving the swimmers the confidence to perform better individually. “Teamwork and relays are key features of where we are heading,” explained Tan.

“We’re trying as much as possible to go in every single meet thinking of ourselves as Team Singapore instead of individuals, so all the training partners are helping each other. To get four people to participate in the Olympics as a relay team is very hard. But to qualify for that, you have to swim at a high level, which usually borders on the ‘A’ mark for individual events. So, if they qualify for the relay, that’s where they start to understand that they can be competitive on an individual basis as well.”

top-level competition

Tan also acknowledged that, for young swimmers to better develop, it is important that they consistently challenge themselves in a competitive training environment — one reason why Schooling opted to study in the United States at the University of Texas. However, with the SSA working on increasing competitive levels here, he believes local swimmers can reach their full potential without having to train overseas.

“We have reached a point where people now have faith in the programme, that they can do their university here and swim competitively at the same time,” he said. “We want our swimmers to achieve both sporting excellence as well as their academic aspirations here.

“One way we have increased the competitiveness of our training environment is by bringing in foreign sparring partners, such as American breaststroke specialist Kevin Cordes, to help our swimmers raise their game.”

Other top swimmers who have trained here include Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson, a silver medallist (50m backstroke) at last year’s World Championships, and Americans Micah Lawrence (200m backstroke silver medallist at last year’s World Championships) and Sean Mahoney.

Up-and-coming swimmers Rex Tulliuss of the US Virgin Islands and Michael Meyer of the US are also currently training at the NTC.

Development of coaches

Another crucial cog in SSA’s developmental wheel is the improvement of local coaches. A committee, headed by experienced high-performance manager Sonya Michelle Porter, who was brought in by national head coach Sergio Lopes, has been set up to oversee this.

Tan declined to reveal the finer details of what the committee would be working on to achieve better standards of coaching here, but said that more opportunities and support will be provided to local coaches.

With the SSA taking this holistic approach to improving the standard of swimming, Oon is confident it is only a matter of time before more Singapore swimmers start making waves on a global level.

“SSA has adopted an athlete-centric, coach-driven, and science-supported strategy, and will work with other stakeholders to ensure all supporting roles for success are aligned,” said the former national swimmer. “With this system in place, we aim high with our targets for sustainable success, and we strive to give every NTC swimmer a chance to be the next Joseph Schooling and more.”