Having won 11 of the 32 available gold medals at the 2013 Southeast Asian Games, with 30 out of 96 total medals and holding 18 Meet Records, regional dominance is of no concern. Youth development seems to be strong as well, as the country won 44 gold medals at this year’s 38th Southeast Asian Age Group Swimming Championships, more than their next-closest competitors (Vietnam and Thailand) combined.
New Singapore Swimming Association president Lee Kok Choy says that there is one area where the federation can improve, and that’s in transparency.
Shortly after Friday’s election, where Choy beat out Jessie Phua for the role as president, he told Channel News Asia that “the basic thing is to draw out the right policies, comprehensive policies, and hold the line in selection, so we will only have a few complex cases to deal with at the end.”
Lee, who will hold the post for two years, had been the secretary-general of the association, which is really the second-most-powerful elected position within the organization.
The woman who Lee beat out, Jessie Phua, is the former head of the Singapore Bowling Federation.
Among other newly-elected officials, Joscelin Yeo has been chosen as the Vice President for swimming in what was almost a straight-ticket win (though a narrow one) for Lee’s endorsed candidates. Yeo is one of the most famous swimmers in Singapore history, having retired in January of 2007 after a career that included two Asian Games medals and 4 Olympic appearances, along with an astonishing 40 Southeast Asian Games gold medals (plus 15 more minor SEA Games medals).
Many of Singapore’s stars are currently training in the United States, and building more local infrastructure will be among Lee’s top tasks. At the same time, however, Singapore is as close as ever to bigger international breakthroughs. In its history, Singapore has only ever had 1 finalist at the Olympic Games in swimming (Tao Li in the women’s 100 fly in 2008), and 2 at the long course World Championships. With Li now training at the Bolles School in the United States for what will hopefully be some coaching stability, an the young Schooling pushing up to 17th in the world in 2013 in the 200 fly as still a junior, the federation seems to be teetering on the edge of making an impact in 2016.
Lee holds a day job as the manager of the Singapore territory for Micron Technology, Inc. He holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the National University of Singapore.
