The Winning Edge: Turning Talent into Triumph through Guidance and Dedication

Coaches play a crucial role in Singapore's sporting success. Through their expert guidance and dedication, they help athletes develop their skills and achieve significant milestones on the global stage.

Kitefoiler Maximilian Maeder is congratulated by his coach Johnny Dolenc after winning the Olympic Bronze Medal (PHOTO: SNOC/Kong Chong Yew)

Maximilian Maeder comes off his kiteboard, beaming from ear to ear, fresh off winning a historic Olympic Bronze medal in Marseille.

“I am phenomenally grateful for (my team’s) support and what they’ve allowed me to do. I cannot have gone,” he says, “anywhere near this place without exactly the people I’m with.”

What gives athletes the extra edge? A balanced diet, quality sleep, cutting-edge data?

Perhaps a coach who is sometimes a tailor, carefully measuring and stitching together a training plan. At other times, he is a father, offering encouragement and wisdom, pushing those under his care beyond their self-imposed limits, scaling heights they never thought were possible. 

The eyes, heart and mind behind athletes

The coach celebrates every point from the sidelines of a badminton court or is drowned by the cheers of an upbeat crowd in a track-and-field meet. He swims every stroke, hits every shuttlecock, sails every wind. He wears his sneakers like the spikes the sprinter wears when she takes the running track and moves his limbs as if trying to score a point. If he could, trust that he would be in the arena.

Kelvin Ho, Singapore Badminton’s National Singles Head Coach, would know. At the Tokyo Olympics, with every point won by national singles No. 1 Loh Kean Yew, Ho would emphatically pound his chest and unleash a thunderous roar “like a gorilla” – to the point it even cramped up. 

“I’ll usually do that if I want to motivate (Loh), especially during crunch time when he needs to be brave,” he said.  

Ho strategises a game plan as Loh battled Li Shifeng in the Last 16 of the Paris Olympics (PHOTO/SNOC)

Beyond the motivation on the court, Ho strategises a game plan for each match, analysing the technical aspects of serve, smash, footwork, and psychological details such as body language and emotions. 

While restricted movement from a bandaged hand caused Loh to fall to eventual gold medallist Viktor Axelsen in the quarter-finals in Paris, he became just the second Singaporean to reach the last eight of an Olympics. 

Despite the “heartbreaking” result, Loh quickly credited Ho and his technical team on social media  after the tournament, saying that he “couldn’t have made it this far without you guys”.

Singapore Swimming’s “flying fish”, Ang Peng Siong, would -- like Ho -- share a sentiment in hoping for his athletes’ success. In his heyday, Ang was once the first Singaporean to hold the world No.1 ranking in 50m freestyle at the 1982 US Swimming Championships.

These days, the two-time Olympian, now 61, coaches Paralympic swimmer Toh Wei Soong. Toh made his Paralympics debut in the 2020 games in Tokyo and qualified for two finals in the recent Paris Paralympics. The timings set in Paris were Toh’s 2024 season best. 

Ang said: “When I was an athlete, my focus was on improving and getting faster with every opportunity…I always aimed to be the best in whatever I endeavoured, becoming the fastest swimmer in the world. I see that same fighting spirit in Wei Soong.

“As part of his training strategy, we need to constantly seek best practices and work closely with like-minded experts to give him the best chance of success.”

Ang celebrating Toh’s triumph after the 2022 Asian Paralympic Games (PHOTO/APSC.SG)

Lows, highs and run-through-a-wall relationships

Yet, as with every relationship, the connection between coaches and athletes is sometimes fragile. Disagreements may arise, especially when coaches tend to be direct and point out flaws of athletes. 

Recently-retired Joseph Schooling had a fallout with his mentor and coach, Sergio Lopez. Growing up in the US, Schooling, “full of teenage angst”, recalled that Lopez “had to absorb all this nonsense I threw at him, tantrums, being late to practice”. This culminated in the wake of the 2012 Olympics, where moments before his 200m Butterfly race, Schooling was told that his goggles and cap were not approved. The then-teenager acted out and “threw everything negative I felt at (Lopez)”. Schooling only “woke up” after Lopez’s wife told him that Lopez didn’t want to coach him anymore. 

The lesson about respect was met with a beautiful response in the 2016 Olympics, when despite being coached then by Eddie Reese at the University of Texas, Schooling asked Lopez (then head coach of Singapore) to walk him to the ready room, as a tradition. 

Schooling, who won a Gold Medal in Rio, explained: “A good coach gives you that unwavering feeling that he’s going to run through a wall with you. Like, you’re going to war essentially.”

One woman who knows about the run-through-a-wall relationship that a coach provides is Yurnita Omar. Yurnita coaches Paralympian Jeralyn Tan, who clinched a historic boccia silver at the Paris Paralympics—Singapore’s first medal in the sport. 

However, her working relationship with Tan started purely by chance. The pair first met when Yurnita was volunteering as a ramp assistant for former Paralympian Toh Sze Ning, who competed in the BC3 category and only started working together when Yurnita transferred to Tan’s BC1 class.

Yurnita and Tan have travelled, eaten, bunked and competed together since first working together in 2016. (PHOTO: SNPC/Goh Si Wei)

Since then, Yurnita and Tan have travelled, eaten, and even bunked together. The BC1 boccia category in which Tan competes allows athletes to have assistance and Yurnita also acts as Tan’s competition partner during matches. 

Competing together in matches also meant experiencing moments of heartbreak as a team. In July, the three-time champion faced disappointment with a quarter-final elimination in the World Boccia Cup in Portugal. “We were broken-hearted ... we were so crushed,” Yurnita recounted.

“We came together and discussed and changed things. We knew it would be difficult and tiring, but we did it.

And it is through these hardships that ties as close as family have formed between the duo. Despite having four children of her own, Yurnita sees Tan just as much as kin.

Yurnita said: “She can tell me everything - from boccia, to her family, to her feelings. Everything.

“From one look on her face, I know what she is going through ... that’s how close we are.”

A passenger-carrying carriage

The word “coach” comes from the French term coche and Hungarian word kocsi, which means “carriage.” Like a carriage carrying passengers, coaches guide runners under their care to the finish line and do not stop barking even after the final whistle. 

Just ask sprint queen Shanti Pereira, whose form has been revitalised since going under Portuguese Luis Cunha’s tutelage. In 2023, Shanti rewrote her national record in the 100m and 200m multiple times. Cunha’s now-famous method of using crushed paper to improve Shanti’s start shaved off precious milliseconds. Still, it was these small gains that turned into massive breakthroughs. 

“He is passionate, he is detail-oriented, he is very knowledgeable and very kind,” explains Shanti. “He accepts me for who I am and the fact I’m not just an athlete but a human, too.”

The acceptance and celebration of success transformed Shanti, who, from the depths of internet trolls and a single SEA Games gold pre-Cunha, now finds her cabinet packed with medals -- three SEA Games golds, two Asian Championships golds, Asian Games gold and silver.

And even as she wept after finishing her race in Paris, where a stress injury to the fibula in her right leg made time feel like it passed so slowly, yet so quickly at the same time, it was clear that she knew Cunha would be right behind her till the very end.

“I am maybe the only person,” Cunha said in an interview with Straits Times, “who saw her in her lowest and best moments.” As described by the interviewer, “her tears, her anxiety, her joy, all this raw emotion only he knows”.

Coach Luis Cunha knows the tears, anxiety, joy and all the raw emotion felt by sprinter Shanti Pereira  (PHOTO: Sport Singapore/Kong Chong Yew)

For every stumble in life lies a mother, and for every hurdle in sport lies a coach. Like a mother who takes care of her children’s needs, a coach scrutinises a detailed, all-rounded plan for each athlete under their care. 

Outside the white lines of a badminton court, the ripples of a swimming pool and the lanes of a running track, a coach’s impact extends beyond the sporting realm. 

Cunha says that the main goal for Shanti is to be “healthy and enjoy the process and journey”. “Flying fish” Ang hopes Wei Soong will “channel his aspirations to become the best version of himself and improve his processes”.

Perhaps in finding the extra edge, athletes need not look very far. 

In an interview with DBS CEO Piyush Gupta, Maximilian Maeder once explained that he “follows whatever my trainer tells me to”.

Perhaps that is all it takes -- a look behind the shoulder, a nod and, as Max puts it, a “Yes, sir!”