IN FOCUS: From determined teen to badminton world champion – Loh Kean Yew’s journey to the top

SINGAPORE: While his exhausted peers were stretching after a long, hard training session, a shy, skinny, sweaty teenager wasn’t done just yet.

Instead, Loh Kean Yew would cajole a teammate or two back on to the badminton court as he ironed out aspects of his game.

Whatever his coach had pointed out previously, he would work on. Rest could wait, improvement could not.

“From time to time he would ask the coaches for feedback. But that’s not the most impressive thing. The most impressive thing is something that a lot of people wouldn’t do. It was that he would then take action,” recalled Singapore Sports School badminton academy general manager Desmond Tan.

“He would call a friend along and say: ‘Hey, help me. After that I will also help you.’ After every training session, he will do it. That’s where you could see that the desire to want to improve was there,” he said.

“When he makes the extra effort, he knows what he is doing through the extra effort.”

It is this spirit of dedication and determination that those who know Kean Yew, Singapore’s newly-crowned world champion, say sets him apart from others.

“Talent is not enough. You have to go the distance,” said Tan. “He has the talent, but the difference between him and others is the commitment he has.”

‘HE HAD IT VERY TOUGH’

At the age of 13, Kean Yew moved away from his family in Malaysia and took up a scholarship from the Singapore Sports School. 

“The first two weeks were very fun because there were no parents,” he told CNA in 2019. “But I missed home – I cried by myself for a few nights before calling my mum and crying some more.

“But after that night where I let my emotions out, I stopped crying and calling – until my mum had to call me!”