3 Ex-National Sportswomen Tell Us What Inspires Them

Growing up, they juggled schoolwork and daily sports trainings to break national records and compete with the world’s best. Now they have big dreams for our future generations. The Weekly meets these ex-national sportswomen.

- Sylvia Ong

"Being a mum is harder than joining the Olympics"

– Joscelin Yeo, 37

Ex-national swimmer who represented Singapore for 17 years now lives a regular life into which she fits active volunteering 

Singapore has groomed hundreds of Olympics-worthy athletes, but only a handful are household names. Joscelin Yeo is one of them. Her eventful 17-year swimming career which started at a tender age of 11 led her to become the reigning national champion of 40 gold medals from the southeast Asian games. Joscelin also swam for Singapore in the Asian games, Commonwealth games, as well as four summer Olympic games.

Nine years after retiring from the pool, “singapore’s golden girl” still has her hands full – with her three sons, sean, four, David, three, and Michael, one, part-time counseling at her church and as vice-president at the Singapore swimming association, where she helps give younger swimmers a chance to go for the gold.

“There isn’t a clear pathway of how young swimmers can move from recreational swimming to competitive swimming so that’s one of the things I’m hoping to change here,” says Joscelin.

Not many people know that I… “am an introvert. I feel quite uncomfortable being in the spotlight and talking to people I barely know.”

Having my kids swim for Singapore someday… “I will be their biggest cheerleader if they do make it to the nationals. However I don’t intend to push my kids to become national sportsmen unless they want to.”

How I plan to celebrate this National Day: “I might take the kids to the Marina Barrage where they can run around, play Frisbee and watch the flypast and fireworks.”