The team behind TeamSG: Coach

Photo credit: World Archery.

Syahidah celebrates her 2019 World Archery Para Championships win with her coach Pang Qing Liang.

Nur Syahidah Alim felt her breath pulsating. Her opponent, reigning Paralympic champion Jessica Stretton, had just forced their gold medal match at the 2019 World Archery Para Championships into a tiebreak.

“Breathe in confidence, breathe out anxiety,” Syahidah kept telling herself. Swoosh! Her final arrow scored a nine, millimetres from the 10-ring. Stretton matched the score, but Syahidah’s arrow was closer to the bull’s eye. Singapore’s first world champion para-archer was thus crowned.

The victorious moment in the Netherlands is enshrined in a picture. Syahidah pumps a fist while her coach Pang Qing Liang… lifts up her competition stool in awkward celebration?

It is a poignant photo in Singapore’s sporting history, but Qing Liang’s buddies never let him forget it for another reason. “I was so happy, I raised her stool! My friends asked me: ‘Are you the chair ambassador?’” laughs Qing Liang, who started coaching Syahidah just a few months before the world championships.

Qing Liang’s disarming, affable approach is apparent through our interview. Near the end, he reveals, “Actually I’m very stressed (about this interview), it’s the first time I’m doing (media) engagement… It’s me and not Syahidah — sure boh?”

He was one of the shoulders to the wheel as Team Singapore rolled into the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, with our 10 athletes clinching two gold medals in women’s para swimming and setting a total of seven personal bests and five new national records.

Most of the time, as reflected in Qing Liang’s disbelief at being interviewed, athletes take centre stage. But behind the sportsmen is a team who have walked the journey alongside, if not paved the way, for them to shine. They are coaches, sport biomechanists, dietitians, psychologists and physiologists, among others, who feel each loss and triumph as keenly as the athlete.

“We are quite crazy.”

The noon sun casts a searing pall over a training court in Bedok. In the distance, Qing Liang trudges towards the target boards. After removing the arrows, he takes the 50-metre walk back to Syahidah. And so goes the cycle.

Depending on the weather conditions, Qing Liang sometimes uses a pair of binoculars to observe Syahidah’s shots.

Syahidah, born with cerebral palsy which affects her lower body movement, trains five days a week, shooting at least 200 arrows each day.

Qing Liang, a former national archer, keeps the Singapore Disability Sports Council’s (SDSC) 2020 Sportswoman of the Year on track by planning her training programme and making sure she hits training objectives. Having studied theoretical physics at National Technological University, Qing Liang also relishes initiating experiments with sport scientists. For example, he had embarked on a research project, which included sticking trackers on Syahidah’s joints to analyse optimum angles for shooting. Millimetres decide world championships, as she knows well.

On the training ground, the art of performance is less precise. Instead of hearing a coach barking orders to his protégé, hearty laughter echoes around the Bedok court. It’s incredible how Syahidah is shooting personal bests and still remarkably relaxed. Or perhaps, she is on her A game precisely because she is totally at ease with Qing Liang.

“We’re quite crazy,” says Qing Liang of their dynamic. “We talk like we are best friends.”

Qing Liang checking and tuning a bow to improve its accuracy.

The bond is clearly paying off, based on her achievements — Asian champ and world champ, plus a world No.1 ranking. Qing Liang’s power of positive thinking has hit the mark. There is a method to his “madness” — being buddies with his athletes helps them to confide in him. “It is most fulfilling to see athletes smiling at the end of every event,” he says. “The most important thing is that they must be happy.”

The philosophy has earned him plaudits. Qing Liang was awarded Coach (High Performance) of the Year at the 2020 Singapore Disability Sports Awards (SDSA) despite being the youngest nominee.

As he watches on the sidelines, he still feels the tingle of competition. “When I see her shoot, if I tell you I’m not very nervous, it’s fake. There’re a lot of butterflies in the stomach. Not only when she shoots good or bad — but (because) you also want Singapore to win on the world stage.”

Look out for the other parts of this series on the Team behind Team Singapore. In the meantime, you may be interested in the feature on a sport dietitian, or to find out more on the different sports subsectors in Singapore, and how to get more involved in sports.