Project Ignition
Motivating Through Stories
Ang Peng Siong
Competitive Swimmer
Background Information
Ang Peng Siong is a competitive swimmer from 1977 to 1993, was ranked world's No.1 in 1982 when he clocked a time of 22.69s in the 50m freestyle at the US Nationals. That record which he set for the 50m freestyle remains the national record till this day.
Story
Ang is the fourth child in a family of five siblings. His father, Ang Teck Bee, a 1964 judo Olympian and former pool supervisor at Farrer Park, introduced his children to sports at an early age. Ang learned swimming from his father at the tender age of five. Ang's father also put him and his siblings under a regime of weight-lifting exercises during his secondary school days. He credited the discipline he learned to his swimming coaches from his Anglo-Chinese School, Wee Moh Nam and Leen Wei Ling, as well as the weight-lifting programme he underwent in the development of his early swimming career.
Ang first represented Singapore at the age of 15 at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games held at Kuala Lumpur in 1977. He won a silver medal for the 4 X 100m freestyle relay. In 1979, he won his first SEA games gold medal in the 100m freestyle and 4 X 100m relay. The following year, Ang took part in the Hawaiian International Invitational Swimming Championship and was the only non-American swimmer to qualify for the prestigious 50m freestyle sprint final. He was known to make his first international debut in 1978 at the Asian Games at age 16. Ang became the first Singaporean swimmer to be offered an overseas scholarship when he was talent-spotted at the meet. He was offered a full athletics scholarship to study at the University of Houston. Under the tutelage of coach Phil Hansel, Ang improved tremendously and went on to win the first National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divison I Gold Medal for the University of Houston in 1983.
In 1982, Ang became the world's fastest 50-metres freestyle swimmer when he clinched the gold medal at the US National Championships in Indianapolis at a time of 22.69s. In recognition of his achievement, he was named the World's Fastest Swimmer for 1982 by Swimming World magazine. In the same year, Ang also won a gold medal for the 100m freestyle at the Asian Games in New Delhi. He bagged the Singapore National Olympic Council's Sportsman of the Year in 1982, 1983 and 1984, thereby becoming the first person to win the coveted award for three consecutive years. He has also been inducted into the Singapore Sports Council Sports Museum Hall of Fame. In the course of Ang's swimming career, he has had a couple of near-brushes with Olympic fame. In 1984, he won the 100m freestyle Olympic B finals at a national record time of 51.09s, and in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, he missed the A finals by just one place. In 2002, at the age of 40, he took 24.64s to complete the 50-metres freestyle event at the World Masters in Christchurch, 2 seconds off his time twenty years back.
At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, he just missed the cut for the 100m free final but bounced back to take the consolation final. At the 1986 World Championships in Madrid, Spain, he came agonisingly close to a medal in a field which included big American stars Tom Jager and Matt Biondi but his focus quickly turned to his next target – the 1988 Seoul Olympics. There he missed the final for his favourite event – the 50m free – and didn’t do as well as he expected in the consolation final. Yet he moved on – surely and bravely.
On 11 August 1993, Ang announced his retirement from competitive swimming. At that time, Ang needed to raise $75,000 for his participation in the Asian Games but sponsorship was not forthcoming. Two years later, he founded the Aquatic Performance Swim School at Farrer Park and has since groomed many sports personalities like Leslie Kwok and Mark Chay. He also coaches swimmers from the Singapore Paralympics Team.
On 24 March 2009, the papers reported that Ang was the national head swimming coach. The search by Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) started in the mid-2004. His jobscope in his four-year contract with the SSA is not only to coordinate and plan the policies, strategies and national objectives for the high performance team but also to organise and lend focus to the national team. He chose to quit his position as managing director of Aquatic Performance Swim School as a result. Ang is the first Singaporean to be appointed to such a high-profile position by the SSA. He has also been the head coach of the Singapore swimming team at various major events such as Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games. He was also one of the Board of Governors of the Singapore Sports School. For his portfolio with SSA, he would be assisted by Carol Capitani, the assistant head coach.
Lessons and Values
It takes dedication and focus
When Peng Siong was given the rare opportunity to study abroad in Houston for six years, one can imagine the challenge of balancing studies and a gruesome training regime. Not to mention the many distractions of college life, among them – parties, and alcohol. “Some of my roommates would buy a keg of beer and have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he reminisces.
Armed with a strong sense of responsibility and discipline, he knew he had to stay focused. He has his father to thank for the lesson on dedication: “I think the important thing is to know where your limit is. This is where my respect for my dad played a strong part. I saw my dad get up early to coach swimmers at 5.30 in the morning, then he would work till 5 p.m. and in the evening, he would continue his passion for judo. You can see the dedication in him. He’s who I picked up the values from, that’s how I managed to maintain my focus in college. So most of the time [instead of going to parties], I stayed back and ate healthy and boring dorm food!”
Don’t whine
Having coached many able-bodied and disabled swimmers, he shares that the disabled swimmers have taught him many valuable lessons. What impressed on him most is their fierce independence: “They train just as hard as anyone else. If they are given the opportunity to excel, they would take on the challenge.”
“When you see them overcome their challenges, you can reflect upon yourself. In fact during combined training camps overseas, the disabled actually put the able-bodied in their place. Previously, the able-bodied swimmers would whine about training, but when they first trained with the disabled swimmers who did not complain one bit, they stopped whining and persevered and endured.”
Have the will to challenge failure
Peng Siong is no stranger to setbacks in his life. The one setback that seems seared in his memory was the 1988 Olympics in Seoul where he missed the finals by one place. “It was quite devastating. I remember I cried.”
Good thing Peng Siong’s no stranger to comebacks either. A dedicated coach, he’s trained many athletes to achieve their peak performance. His biggest reward has been helping athletes win gold medals and the Beijing Paralympics was that comeback moment for him when Pin Xiu won the women’s 50 meter backstroke. “It took 14 years, but that was a good comeback for me.”
QUOTES
“The will to challenge failure must be stronger than the desire to win”