Story by REDintern Chantal Liew. Photos by Jerald Ang/Red Sports.

Quah Ting Wen receiving the Singapore flag from Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu. (Photo 1 © Jerald Ang/Red Sports)

Singapore National Stadium, Saturday, June 3, 2017 — With less than three months to the 29th SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) organised a send-off for the 73 aquatic athletes with Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu as Guest-of-Honour.

During the event, Minister Fu presented the National Flag to five-time SEA Games participant and multiple gold medallist, Quah Ting Wen, who accepted the flag on behalf of the athletes from the five aquatic disciplines — Swimming, Men’s Water Polo, Diving, Synchronised Swimming and Open Water Swimming.

Being the veteran in the contingent, Ting Wen emphasised the importance of building a strong team culture despite swimming being a largely individual event.

“We will face competition and KL will be very hostile but at the end of the day, when you can look back and your team is there, it’s a comforting feeling knowing that no matter what the outcome, there’s a team that you can go back to,” said the 24-year-old.

Synchronised swimming captain Debbie Soh also echoed Ting Wen’s belief in team spirit as she feels that the more experienced athletes can help the debutants to perform in Kuala Lumpur.

“We do have three members from the previous SEA Games team and it’s up to us to help guide the six younger ones to prepare them for what we will face in KL,” said Debbie who was part of the team beat Malaysia to the gold medal two years ago.

“Now that we are competing in Malaysia, we won’t have the same home ground advantage so we need to put in double the effort but I think we will be able to depend on each other as a support system and pull through it as a team.”

After a historic 23-goal campaign on home soil in 2015, the contingent is hoping to continue their good performance in SEA Games and they will be boosted by the return of Quah Zheng Wen, the most bemedalled athlete at the previous edition of the games.

Quah returned home from University of California, Berkeley, to train alongside the national team just two weeks ago.

“I think we have been training really well as a team. Being back for the past few weeks have been really nice, just seeing familiar faces and swimming with these guys just takes me back to when I was preparing for the Olympics,” said the 20-year-old.

Overall, Lee Kok Choy, President of SSA, said he is confident of the performance of his athletes going into the SEA Games.

“As our team makes their final preparations, I am confident that they will be ready to give their best in the SEA Games in August.”

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