The Big Read: Pressures and temptations aplenty in sporting world, only a rare few can scale the peak and stay there

Dr Tan said that though he had abstained from playing any video games to focus on his training, his father was the one who actively encouraged him to play them. 

“My father felt that I was so weird as a teenager who was not interested in computer games, that he forced me to play,” he said. “You want some normality … you cannot be totally ignorant.” 

He added that he had applied this philosophy to his later years in the sport. 

For instance, while he was training as a national athlete, he still went out with his friends for drinking sessions – except he would make compromises such as not consume any alcohol. 

“When I don’t drink, my body still stays clean and optimal, but at the same time, I also want to gain more social skills,” he said. “While learning to be a better sailor, I also need to learn to be a better person, it’s not contradictory.”

However, sport psychologists said these compromises and ways of dealing with stress have to happen from a young age. 

Chief sport and performance psychologist at SportPsych Consulting Edgar Tham said that to keep athletes away from dealing with their stress through unhealthy means, there needs to be a “proactive approach”.  

With younger athletes, Mr Tham will often do a “mental screening” on them, such as asking them what their mental state is, and what stressors they face.

Should the athlete indicate any issues or show signs of stress, then the athletes will be supported by psychologists. 

“The proactive approach is what (sporting bodies) don’t do enough, it’s like a ticking time bomb, once the stress goes beyond a certain level, athletes may take desperate measures to deal with it in their own way,” he said. 

However, it is only human to err, and ultimately elite sportspeople cannot be expected to stay away from all of life’s temptations during the years they spend training and competing. 

As Fang, the former national triathlete, put it, these sportspeople are in a high-pressure environment, and have fewer outlets than most to de-stress. 

“For normal people, sporting activities can be a relief from the daily grind, but elite athletes don’t have this avenue, which might explain why they seek other ways to blow off steam and release stress,” he said. 

For ex-national swimmer Tao, a common way for her to relieve the pressure of competition was to engage in retail therapy, and on rare occasions, she would go to a nightclub. 

“Different people will have different ways to relieve their pressure … I think once or twice a year should be okay,” she said. “But when I was competing, I didn’t smoke, and I didn’t drink alcohol at all.” 

Ultimately, said Schooling’s former coach Lopez, it is unrealistic to expect athletes to not want to do the things that normal people do. 

Lopez, who won the bronze medal in the 1988 Olympics, returned to his country a hero, having been the first person born and raised in Spain to win an Olympic medal in swimming. 

He went to a nightclub to celebrate the achievement, only to have some members of the public come up to him and criticise him for consuming alcohol. 

“I’m not excusing any of that, but I think what people need to understand is that people are people and they go through a lot of things, and they feel very lonely and they make decisions that they shouldn’t.” 

However, the sportspeople interviewed all agreed that a line has to be drawn with illegal substances, such as recreational or performance-enhancing drugs.

When athletes make such grave mistakes, they have to own up to them, because after all, they are still in the public eye and a role model to many. 

“When you break the law, you have to be accountable, and you have to be responsible and you have to be honest with the mistakes that you make,” said Lopez. 

CAN SINGAPORE PRODUCE SERIAL WORLD-BEATERS? 

While the world celebrates serial winners – Roger Federer in tennis, Michael Phelps in swimming, Lionel Messi in football, and a select group of others who have gained sporting immortality – can we expect Singapore itself to produce more than one-hit wonders?

The nation has occasionally produced world beaters, such as Schooling, who went on to beat his idol Phelps en route to a gold medal in the 2016 Olympics, and badminton player Low, who outplayed then world number one Viktor Axelsen to clinch the world championship title last year.

However, such feats have yet to be repeated on the same scale for either of the two athletes, which begs the question: Is it fair for Singaporeans to expect a repeat of world-beating performances from our athletes?

The answer, according to veteran athletes, is “no”. 

“People think that just because you are an Olympic champion, that you have to be an Olympic champion the next time,” said Lopez. “I’m sorry, but if it was that easy, everybody would do it.”