SINGAPORE – Top women’s national high jumper Michelle Sng took a leap of faith to quit her job and go all in for a big tilt at doing well at the SEA Games, Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, which will all take place in 2022.
She was rewarded on Saturday (Oct 30) – two months into her full-time stint – when she bettered her own national record by clearing 1.86m at a Singapore Athletics Performance Trial meet at the Home of Athletics in Kallang.
She beat her previous best of 1.84m, set in 2015, and also the qualification benchmarks for the three major Games she had targeted.
She had met the SEA Games mark of 1.78m in March, but needed to clear 1.80m and 1.84m to earn a ticket to the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games respectively.
Sng, 34, explained that she decided to leave her job of three years at Bollywood Adventures, which provides farm-based education and experiences, because she wanted to make the most of the remainder of her sporting career.
“It’s a long season (in 2022) and a big one,” she said.
“It’s also rare to get three major Games in one year, so I thought I’d get my finances in order, leave my job and focus on training and competing.
“I’m not young, in terms of sport, so I want to give it my all. I don’t have another four years to wait (for the next major Games cycle). It’s now or never.”
Saturday’s jump was the fourth time Sng has rewritten the national record.
In 2006, she rewrote Yu Long Nyu’s 13-year-old mark of 1.74m with a 1.78m effort, and then bettered it with a 1.80m jump two months later.
She had to wait until 2015 for the next improvement when she cleared 1.84m in a meet in the Philippines.
What made Sng’s latest effort remarkable was that she had been jumping for just three weeks, as she is in an early phase of her preparation for the upcoming season.
“The numbers looked good in training, so I was hoping to at least jump 1.84m to qualify for all the Games,” she said. “The national record was the cherry on top.”
Sng indulged in a bowl of laksa to celebrate her new mark, but has not lost sight of her goal of excelling in 2022.
She is not bothered by the prospect of having to peak three times in five months – the Hanoi SEA Games is slated for mid-May, while the Birmingham Commonwealth Games (July 28-Aug 8) and Hangzhou Asian Games (Sept 10-25) are just over a month apart.
In fact, she relishes it, having endured limited competition opportunities over the past two years owing to the pandemic.
“It’s exciting to be competing so much and it’s just more opportunities to jump… (My coach and I) have been looking at the season’s plan and we’ll make it work,” said Sng.
