National kayaker Yeo Min aces IB exam
Each time Yeo Min takes the MRT, she will be bent over her school work during the short trip.
For the national kayaker, time is of the essence as she has to juggle her International Baccalaureate (IB) studies and seven to nine training sessions a week.
To help her manage her time, the St Joseph’s Institution International School student created a planner on Google spreadsheet to organise her life, which is not a bed of roses either.
The only child also has to overcome personal challenges as her father was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in February 2023, a condition that leads to muscle weakness. Her mother was found to have breast cancer shortly after Yeo was born and died seven years later.
Yeo said: “I normally travel by train, and the small bits of (school) work, I’ll do it on the train, because it might only be 15 minutes at a time, but it’s 15 minutes less that I have, and over time, it really adds up.”
On Dec 17, the hard work paid off as the ecstatic 18-year-old found out that she was one of the school’s top achievers, having scored 43 points out of a possible 45 in the IB diploma exams.
She was among 2,442 students in Singapore, and 207 from SJI International, who sat the exams in November.
Despite her hectic schedule, Yeo, who picked up kayaking when she was nine and joined the national team at 13, never contemplated quitting.
Although she admitted that she “hated the sport at first” as she would start ahead of other kids but finish last, she grew to love kayaking after a while.
She said: “Quitting has never been an option. Not only do I have such a big community in the sport, I also love the sport itself.
“I’m so grateful for the opportunities that the sport has given me to travel internationally, to interact with people from other countries, it’s never occurred to me to quit, because it’s too priceless.”
On her family challenges, Yeo said it is an additional emotional burden as they have a live-in caretaker to look after her father, who previously held a governmental job before opening his consultancy firm.
“It has affected my training and academics in the sense that home is no longer a place of rest,” she said. “It’s definitely something more on my plate that I already felt was pretty full.”
Yeo is thankful for the support of her extended family and close family friends to help her get through the tough times.
She said: “One thing that helps me through grief of any kind, for any phase of life (is the philosophy), ‘don’t be sad that they’re gone, don’t be sad that it’s over, but celebrate that it happened, celebrate that someone like that lived’.”
SJI high school principal Bradley Bird praised Yeo for her resilience.
He said: “Her ability to achieve at such a high level academically and athletically, while overcoming profound personal challenges, inspires us all. She is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the power of a supportive community.”
When asked what her dream is, Yeo said: “To podium at the Asian Games.”
To achieve that aim, she will be taking a gap year to focus on making the squad for the 2025 SEA Games in Thailand at the qualifiers in April.
“Honestly, I still have a lot of work to do. It’s not a super high chance that these major Games will be in my immediate future,” said Yeo, who aims to pursue a degree in economics or biochemistry in future.
“But that’s sport, right? You pursue excellence without the guarantee that you’ll ever reach it, but I’m prepared to wait a few years if it doesn’t come into fruition so soon.”
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