Singapore U16 football captain swaps land for water in quest for SEA Games success

SINGAPORE: She represented Singapore on the football pitch in Jalan Besar Stadium a few months ago. Come December, Tyan Foong will don the country's red and white again - but this time, on the water in the Thai central province of Pathum Thani.

The 16-year-old, who captained the national under-16 girls to a second-place finish at the Lion City Cup youth tournament in July, is now part of a six-member cable wakeboarding team competing at the biennial multi-sport SEA Games.

This year's edition sees the return of wakesports to the line-up for the regional event, after a six-year absence. Before that, wakesports was a steady source of medals for Singapore at the Games, with 20 medals amassed from the 2011, 2015, 2017 and 2019 editions.

Foong hopes to add to that collection in what will be her SEA Games debut.

She started playing football aged eight, before her uncle introduced her and her sisters to wakeboarding about two years later.

“I found out that I had a lot of interest in it, and then I started doing wakeboarding seriously," Foong told CNA earlier in September.

"I got my first board when I was in Primary Six. Slowly from there, I started getting into it and the coaches here saw that I had potential; and when they started a national team, I started training with them."

The Tanjong Katong Girls’ School student said determination was the common ingredient needed to succeed in both of her sports.

In football, learning how to control the ball under pressure may seem very basic but requires skill that takes time and effort to master, she said.

With wakeboarding, Foong had to persevere in overcoming a phobia of launching herself into the air, after sustaining a bad crash early on.

She is also sitting for her O-Level examinations this