The Big Read: Pressures and temptations aplenty in sporting world, only a rare few can scale the peak and stay there

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Already pursuing a path less travelled, sportspeople often have to make sacrifices in their personal lives. And the scrutiny is even worse for successful athletes, with the public quick to criticise their every move.

For instance, Schooling himself and 2021 Badminton World Champion Loh Kean Yew - Singapore's two most high-profile sportsmen in recent years - have yet to match their career-defining achievements or even come close since then.In the world of elite sports, the pressures that athletes face creep in long before they dance under the lights. And on the big day, the competition itself is a stressful experience - but the pressure is often due to extrinsic factors.

“If you feel that your funding level is not commensurate with your performance … then there’s that added ‘guilty’ feeling which makes you want to perform harder, want to try harder and, of course, that puts more pressure on you.” “It is very common for young athletes to ineffectively process their performance, and they can fixate on it for a really long time, and it can really affect their performance going forward,” she added.

And while most athletes who do not make it to the top of their sport remain relatively anonymous to the public, a whole new dimension of pressure sets in the moment they prove themselves on the world stage. Lopez, who is presently the head coach of swimming and diving at Virginia Tech University, said that when Schooling first announced as a child that his dream was to beat American swim legend Michael Phelps, nobody other than his parents believed in him.

His last competition as a national athlete was at the 2021 SEA Games in Vietnam which was held in May this year due to the pandemic. “In university, the time that I spend doing my sport, other people spend doing internships, and if you go out there and get interviewed for a job, the company will obviously pick the people with more experience in the job, they won’t say ‘wow, this guy went to major games’.Former national diver Jonathan Chan, who competed in the Tokyo Games, said that pursuing diving as a sport throughout his university years came at a huge opportunity cost.

“I felt added pressure in that all the sacrifices made to balance the different priorities would seem to be for nought if I wasn’t able to deliver sporting results,” said the 47-year-old.Ex-national badminton player Wong Shoon Keat said that for national badminton players, the sacrifices are often greater as compared to other sports, as most players play the game full-time.

Singapore’s culture of prioritising academics over sport is also harmful to young athletes, said sports psychologists. This can have a negative outcome for children, who find themselves doing the sport for a very utilitarian purpose, other than pursuing it as a passion.

 

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