(From left) Floorballer Jaime Cheong, canoe polo player Joyce Wong and goalkeeper Beatrice Tan.
PHOTO: (From left) GRANT MEAD, TEO WEI KEONG, GERALDINE ENG
While holding full-time jobs at Singapore Sports Hub, these avid sportswomen find the time to commit and pour their hearts into the sports that they love.
Jaime Cheong
Jaime Cheong, Venue Operations Assistant Director of the OCBC Arena, professes that she loves a wide array of sports. She has oversight of the venue and works with her teams to deliver all aspects of programming and everyday activities. The OCBC Arena is responsible not only for the daily public use of a multitude of sports, but is also core for the elite athlete training of Singapore’s national sporting stars. The facility is open seven days a week from 7am to 10pm and it is one of the few examples across the sporting world where members of the public can share the same facilities as the national teams.
Besides indulging in tennis, football, basketball and rollerblading, Jaime has made quite a mark in Singapore’s floorball scene. When Singapore hosted the Women’s World Floorball Championships in 2005, which was the first Women’s World Floorball Championships to be held outside of Europe, Jaime was part of Singapore’s national team. That year, Team Singapore beat Denmark’s national team, which was one of the favourites to lift the trophy.
“When I was training with the national team, I did not have a lot of free time, but I was leading a healthy and fulfilling life during that period. My time was allocated to sleeping, working and eating well, and Singapore Sports Hub was very supportive. I have helpful and understanding bosses, so I just had to plan my training and overseas competitions around my work schedule,” she divulges. “I currently play in a less competitive division, so if a weekend competition clashes with an event, for example, I just plan the schedule with my colleagues and take the next weekend shift.”
Joyce Wong
Joyce Wong shares that she walks a lot every day. As Venue Operations Manager of the National Stadium, she goes on many site recces with event organisers, while holding meetings and planning sessions for upcoming events,such as the JJ Lin Sanctuary 2.0 World Tour. When she isn’t organising events, which can take up to six months of preparation, she indulges in the tough and acrobatic sport of canoe polo.
“It’s a hybrid sport that marries kayaking with water polo, and sometimes basketball. It’s called canoe polo, so it’s easy to assume it’s played in canoes. In fact, it’s played in kayaks – so yeah it should consider a rebrand,” she remarks with a laugh.
Joyce shares that juggling sports and life’s other commitments requires good time management, disclosing, “events are typically held on weekends, so are my training sessions, sometimes these can be back-to-back in a single day! During the off season, I get to spend more time with friends.”
Beatrice Tan
Venue Operations Executive of Major Events and Projects, Beatrice Tan shares that she is actively involved in the staging of various major events, such as the HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens, which span Singapore Sports Hub’s many venues.
At her full-time job, Beatrice’s coworkers depend on her to liaise and coordinate with various stakeholders, and conduct site walks with clients and hirers. In the Singapore Women’s Football Team and Lion City Sailors Football Club, her teammates depend on her as their nimble last line of defence.
A dextrous and agile goalkeeper, Beatrice has been playing football for 12 years, ever since she was introduced to the sport in junior college. In university, Beatrice’s talent for keeping footballs out of the goal earned her a call-up to Singapore’s national team. Her greatest achievement in football to date was winning the FAS Women’s Challenge Cup finals at the National Stadium in 2019.
“Many Singaporeans are still not aware that there’s a women’s league in Singapore due to low media coverage and support. This is a stark contrast to the global appetite for women’s football. The 2019 Women’s World Cup in France was the most-watched FIFA Women’s World Cup ever and watched by 1.12 billion people,” she explains.
“When I’m not at work, you can find me on the field. The support that I receive from my two bosses, Damian and Mitch, has been tremendous and crucial to my continuation of the sport. They frequently check in with me on my training schedule and progress, and have allowed me to travel with the National Team for various international tournaments and friendlies. To me, it’s the little things that make a big difference and I’m really thankful for them.”
